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Like all good stories, let’s start with a picturesque setting; a rare Irish sunny summer’s day on a golden stretch of sandy beach in West Cork. Next, a cast of characters; that would be myself Veronica, my friend Genevieve and our kids. And to spice things up; some dramatic tension, brought to a head during our favourite daily summertime ritual, The Picnic.

On this particular day, The Picnic very quickly descended into a free-for-all, where the fruit, always lots of strawberries, pistachios, yoghurts, were unceremoniously cast-aside as soon as a multi-bag of shiny, crinkly, foil-packets of crisps were produced. Small eyes lit up and eager little hands stretched out to grab the other-worldy treats! It was in that moment, that all became clear to me. I knew instinctively – the way you know about a good man – that something needed to be done about “the crisp issue”, and that I was the woman to do it. And so it was there, on a beach in West Cork, that the Good Crisp Crusader (that’s what they call me at home) was born!

 

Our Crisp Crusade

Once I decided to go for it, the excitement began! I began my mixing, flavoring, tasting and baking potatoes and veggies and anything else you can think of, thankfully our German aupair had brought us a present of a waffle machine from Germany and that got the mind thinking –we can try make healthy crisps in the waffle machine with mashed potato!!  Now I’m not being big headed but I make yummy mashed potato, and I got thinking, instead of adding jam or nutella like on my regular waffles, I knew I would only need to add very little to my good mashed potato to make yummy crisps or we could make them a bit special with some sour cream and onion or some paprika and spices. It took me a couple of months to finally get the right flavour combinations, we now have 4 delicious crisp flavours and varieties that I’m delighted for everyone else to munch on!

It really has been a crazy few months getting everything ready to go, I’ve had my up’s and downs. the one that still resonates with me is the day on barleycove beach my mobile rang and a lady who had tasted my crisps in the quay coop wanted to buy two boxes to bring over to the states for her brother who was getting cancer treatment and she knew that he would be able to eat these, it was such a great feeling to get such feedback from someone, I knew there and that I was on the right track. There’s also obviously been a few downs too, but I’ve been determined and stuck with it, I’ve brushed myself off and kept going. I’m so glad I have, it’s been a great journey so far, and I’m FINALLY at the launch point, ready for the real fun to begin!! Here at  Veronica’s we’re all about enjoying good food – we like to think of our new creation as bags of munchy, crunchy happiness, packed with flavour, but with less fat and salt and other not-so-good stuff. They’re also baked instead of fried, which is also A Good Thing. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!!