PC&B Summer 2021 Collage

Boom Chicka Pop Salted Maple Flavored Kettle Corn- Delicious! Maple goes perfectly with traditional kettle corn. Definitely a dessert. Tasted this at my parents' place.

Palma Louca- A good, light pilsner from Brazil. Cafe Brasil. 

Tierra Madre- Started taking home beer samplers from Trader Joe's and this was a good, light beer find. Brewed in California. 

Doritos Late Night Oven Roasted Chicken- One of Dorito's flavors from Korea. I liked them enough, but I wouldn't want to eat the whole bag in one sitting. Brought to work by a co-worker. 
 

Trader Joe's New Pumpkin Flavored Stuff 2021

Trader Joe's puts out new fall-themed items each year and my co-worker brought a couple of them to the break room table. 

Pumpkin Blondie Brownies

I’m not a huge fan of cake, but I’m a sucker for spice cake. After tasting this TJ's product that is labeled as a brownie, I will argue that I had some of the best spice cake I've had in a long time and it was cut into brownie-like squares. I’m not clear about the pumpkin flavor, but the combination of warm spices formed a delicious, yummy and moist melt-in-your-mouth spice cake. The cake had the perfect amount of sweetness to balance with the icing and white chocolate chips. Pecans added a crunch. These so-called brownies are delicious and dangerous!

Pumpkin Spiced teeny tiny Pretzel

These tiny pretzels have a yogurt-flavored coating, which is sprinkled with bits of crushed pumpkin seeds that are sweetened. I tasted pumpkin spice, but it wasn’t the nice, warm spices smoothly blended that made the brownie yummy. The pretzels had a more artificial taste and, quite frankly, an unpleasant mouthfeel. Maybe if I were more of a sweetened pretzel person these would work for me, but they don’t.

Lay's Doritos Cool Ranch Flavored Potato Chips

A co-worker brought a bag of these to the break room table...

It was as if Lay's put the Cool Ranch flavor onto a potato chip but didn’t attempt to duplicate the Dorito flavor. I happened to have a snack sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and I decided to taste them side by side. Of course, the Doritos won. Doritos have a smoky corn flavor (being corn chips), with a hint of spiciness that is a satisfying flavor pairing with cool ranch. The potato chips are okay with cool ranch, but I have a problem with Lay's calling these Doritos flavored. They're just decent, cool ranch flavored chips. 

These get two potatoes out of four. I could eat them again, but they are not something I'd buy.

Lay's Chestnut Flavored Potato Chips

 A co-worker brought these to the break room table...

These are Lay's from China! And they're delicious. The chestnut flavor is more sweet than salty or savory. But the sweet, slightly savory flavor matches nicely with the crispness of the Lay's. I don't know why it works, but it does. That being said, Its not a flavor that matches with food well, in my opinion, so these chips are a great novelty, but I wouldn't buy them as a snack chip. 

I give these three potato out of four.

Lay's Wavy Jerk Chicken Flavored Potato Chips

This is one of the three limited edition flavors Lay's released in summer 2021.

Lay's did a great job capturing the jerk flavor onto these chips. I remember the chicken flavor, a clear jerk blend and more than a hint, but not enough to blow your roof off amount of heat.  They were so delicious. I know because I finished the bag even though I was struggling with leaving a few chips so that I could write a detailed review and take a photo or two. Now, I'm left with this spare review and a lack of detail. I bought this bag along with the BLT flavor. I never found the third flavor of the Lay's summer releases: Chile Mango flavored chips, holla when you see me!

Wavy Jerk Chicken flavored chips get four potatoes out of four. 

Lay's Summer BLT Flavored Potato Chips

These are one of three flavors Lay's released for summer 2021. 

Summer BLT chips have a smoky, salty, clearly bacon flavor, which, is the first flavor hit,  but then a muted, earthy tomato sneaks up. The more you tongue ruminates, it will get a light onion flavor along with something vegetal. It’s a smooth combination that is quite delicious and pairs well with so many entrees. So far my it is my favorite new chip since Lay's Electric Lime. Please add this to your regular roster Lay's!

Four potatoes out of four. They’re a hit! 

Turkey & Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips

During Thanksgiving, Trader Joe's provided its loving customers with a special treat: Turkey and Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips: "All the flavors of Thanksgiving in each potato chip." I get very excited at the prospect of entree flavored chips such as 7-11's Big Bite Hot Dog Potato Chips or Lay's Classic BLT, but this bag of chips promised me the flavors of a Thanksgiving dinner! Move over Willy Wonka!

I brought these to a Friendsgiving potluck for my food-loving friends to taste with me and although no one thought they were awful, I was only one having a hard time eating just one. I closed the bag so I would have room to enjoy all the amazing food my friends made, but took the chips home, where I ate them by myself over the next few days, along with leftovers.
The back of the bag says "first you taste the turkey, then comes the stuffing, and if you close your eyes, you'll swear you can taste the creamy gravy, too."  My experience was slightly different. There is a distinct flavor of poultry, sage, celery and onion. They taste like I took a forkful of turkey and stuffing and popped it right into my mouth. No gravy, but I also didn't close my eyes while tasting them! As far as mouthfeel goes, they are a light kettle-style chip and therefore did not tear up my mouth and they also did not leave an oily feel nor a bad aftertaste.

Trader Joe's has successfully bagged the "traditional American Thanksgiving meal," although, and I am grateful, they did not try to squeeze dessert in on this chip!
Flavor: accurate
Texture: kettle style
Rating: Three Potato. I can't eat these all the time, but they're a great treat and worth buying one bag of during the holiday season.

P.S.
Two Thanksgivings ago, I found Boulder Canyon Brand's Turkey and Gravy and Pumpkin Pie Kettle Cooked Potato Chips (two separate chips). As you can see on the left, there was a time period I was not posting any blogs and I wasn't really doing a good job at chip tasting, either. I let those chips expire in my snack cabinet and I'm ashamed of wasting food, and more importantly of wasting possibly delicious chips. I'll keep an eye out for Boulder Canyon for next holiday season.