Snack Review: Deep River Asian Sweet & Spicy Chips

 

Deep River chips and snacks have been the “Snack of the Day” on the Rachael Ray Show, and magicianPenn Gillette called them a “damn good chip,” ranking their Rosemary and Olive Oil Chip third on his list of Top 10 Best Potato Chips.

With such endorsements, I thought I’d give Deep River a try. Besides, I’m a fool for quality kettle chips; I just can’t get enough. When I dug into the bag of their Asian Sweet & Spicy chips, I admit I was skeptical. Would these chips taste like cheap and greasy Chinese takeout? What do Rachel Ray and Penn Gillette know anyway? Apparently, they know a lot.

Oh Grasshopper. These were fresh and delicious.

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Snack Review: Kettle Brand Chips

The enlightened snack purveyors at Snackaisle.com sent us a huge box of assorted treats. It was a wonderful thing they did, but it transformed the Snackerrific Review Lab into a feeding frenzy of snack sharks. Chip dust everywhere, dry-roasted edamame husks on the desks, Lara Bar wrappers strewn all about - oh, it was ugly.

Based in New Hampshire, Snackaisle is an online source for tons of all-natural, low-fat, low-sodium, gluten-free snacks, too many to mention now. We’ll be reviewing many of them here over the next few weeks.

Kettle Brand Baked Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper Chips
It was only a 4 oz. bag, but the contents disappeared (during the aforementioned feeding frenzy) in about 10 seconds. I snagged enough chips for myself to know that they’re simply the tastiest potato chips I’ve eaten in years. It was all I could do to keep from licking the inside of the bag.

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Snack Review: Terra Kettles Chef-Inspired Flavors

Okay, when you read this review’s title, how many of you asked yourselves “what the heck is a Terra Kettle?” Believe me, if I hadn’t seen the name on a package, I would have wondered the same thing. The image that springs immediately to mind is some mythological Greek god, hovering over a cauldron as he summons the elements to shape the developing Earth. It would also make a great name for a post-apocalyptic, time-traveling Hollywood blockbuster. I can imagine the tagline, spoken during the trailer in the booming, omniscient voice of that guy who always seems to do the honors: “Terra Kettle: Can they destroy the Earth before it destroys itself?”

As you see above, Terra Kettles are neither the lore of ancient societies nor another sign of Hollywood’s impending demise. “Terra” simply refers to the brand; longtime producers of creative chips made from all sorts of root vegetables. Craving yucca, yams or ruby taro along with your spuds? Terra serves ‘em all up, deep-fried, crisp and super-salty. “Kettles” are Terra’s cutesy abbreviation of “Kettle-cooked Potato Chips”. I’d tasted kettle corn, but didn’t recall tasting kettle chips, which gave no reason enough to try Terra Kettles. That, and the store sold them in two creative “chef-inspired” flavors I’d yet to see elsewhere in a potato chip. As you all know by now, I’m oddly attracted to “different” - okay, obscure to downright bizarre - flavors in my snacks.

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