Remember the glory days of the summer holidays? Afternoon drinkies at 4 with a round of cheese and crackers before the barbie cranks ups.
Oh those were good times weren't they? So much so, I've decided to go on a personal crusade to bring back a classic 4pm saltysnack that deserves a bit more glory than what it now gets.
I'm talking about Nuts and Bolts. Not the ones in a drawer in the garage, but the edible kind. A box of cereal, usually coated in delicious butter and spices and roasted with nuts and then served with a cold beverage.
We got given a massive jar of "nuts and bolts" by Ben's aunty at Christmas time. She passed them on to us because she doesn't like them.
Initially, I, too, thought they were going to sit on the bench and not get eaten so I wondered who I could palm them off to.
You see I had never really tried them. I knew all about them, but they didn't seem quite cool enough to make it onto my charcuterie board this summer.
Well, here I am about to eat my hat and admit to eating the nuts and bolts. I tried them one afternoon getting dinner ready, and there was something deliciously moreish about them.
The combination of the spices and the crunch made for what I can only describe as some sort of addictive rogue gene of mine to make itself known.
I couldn't just stop at one handful, and before I knew it this addiction had taken over and I was getting up in the middle of the night for my nuts-and-bolts fix. I felt ashamed. No one else seemed to be battling the nuts-and-bolts demons but me.
People would come over and I would embarrassingly ask them if they would like some nuts and bolts and they all inevitably claimed they didn't eat them. In fact only Carl, who probably didn't want to make me feel bad, shared some with me over a beer one night. He is the only one.
So for 2022, let's take the shame away from the nuts and bolts salty snack and honour it in all its 80s glory.
Put it next to the pickled onion and cheese toothpicks and let's live a little again! And while we're in 1988, wouldn't a handful be delicious with a Miami Wine Cooler?!
