Junk Food Nation, as Oscar season approaches, I have been watching a LOT of movies.  Some in the theater, and some because my sister is a member of the WGA and gets many Oscar screeners.  The Descendants, Moneyball, the Help…you name it, I’ve seen it.  I’ve seen Mission Impossible 4 twice, I saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – this happens to me. Sometimes I don’t see a movie for seven months, then I go on a streak of like eight or nine in a row.  It’s crazy.

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies too.  I’m not talking about B-movies with jiggly cleavage and monsters that look like they’re made of grocery bags.  I’m talking about big budget movies, MEANT to be at least HALFWAY decent, that were just putrid.  I’m talking Halle Berry’s “Catwoman” bad.  During this movie watching streak to figure out what the best movie is, I began thinking, “What’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen?”

Mine is easy.  The year was 1993, and I was, for some weird reason, REALLY into Robin Williams’ movies.  I dunno why.  I think I was a little obsessed with “Hook,” (RUFIO! RUFIO!), and Dead Poets Society. The movie “Toys” came out in 1992.  Here’s the trailer…and looking back, I should’ve known better:

AMAZING RIGHT?  Good lord.  I dunno why I wanted to see this movie so badly – was it Robin Williams? Was it that I thought it was another Willy Wonka-type movie?  Who knows.  Anyways, I missed it in the theaters and rented it as soon as it came out.  I popped the movie in and pushed play, and then endured 45 minutes of inanity.  COMPLETE WASTE.  I finally reached a point in the movie where two sets of toys are fighting each other, and I just said EFF IT, stopped the movie, rewound the tape and gave it back to the video store. Yet, it was a VHS.  It was the first movie in my life that I never reached the end of, that I had CHOSEN to stop watching.  And I still haven’t.

Junk Food Nation, I ask you: What is the worst movie YOU’VE ever seen?

Today’s junk food is in celebration of today, National Cheese Lover’s Day!: Chef-Inspired Flavors Terra Kettles Pesto & Smoked Mozzarella Kettle Cooked Potato Chips!

The Money Shot

Found in my local Whole Foods, these Chef-Inspired Flavors Terra Kettles Pesto & Smoked Mozzarella Kettle Cooked Potato Chips (say that three times fast) jumped off the shelf at me.  Chef-Inspired flavors?  Well, la dee da!

The longest name for a chip EVER

Still, having been to a lot of restaurants that have been serving homemade mozzarella with pesto recently, I was curious about this flavor combo in potato chip form.  It’s been a while since I’d eaten a kettle chip, what with the trend towards healthier chips and all.  But this is the other trend I’ve been noticing – the trend towards more gourmet exotic flavors.  Or so I hope.

Chef-Inspired! Classy!

I will say calling this flavor Chef-Inspired is entirely pretentious.  But isn’t that what Whole Foods is really about?

Why thank you, I AM tasteful.

Terra, as a company, has traditionally made root vegetable chips, or exotic blue or purple potato chips, so it’s interesting for me to see them venture back into the classic potato chip arena.  Guess they want a piece of that pie, who wouldn’t? Still I wonder how good these can really be?  They don’t have the experience that Frito-Lay or other companies have in making a flavor-punch of a potato chip.

I like my chips to be culinary masterpieces

Is Pesto & Smoked Mozzarella a translatable flavor to a potato chip?  If so, the smoke better be a huge part of this chip, because pesto is a strong, but easy flavor, and mozzarella is very mild.  The smoke is what will make this chip unique.

Hmmm...smoke...last?

Oh no.  Why is smoke the last ingredient??

Crunchy

Rustic looking

These Chef-Inspired Flavors Terra Kettles Pesto & Smoked Mozzarella Kettle Cooked Potato Chips has a standard look – a little oily, nicely folded over thick cut potato chips, lots of green bits to represent the basil and pepper. Time to taste!

Basil pesto-y goodness

My take on these Chef-Inspired Flavors Terra Kettles Pesto & Smoked Mozzarella Kettle Cooked Potato Chips.  First, GREAT pesto flavor.  I got that immediately.  The taste of the olive oil and basil IMMEDIATELY sent the message of “pesto” to my brain.  The chip itself – not the greatest kettle chip in the world.  A kettle chip is usually REALLY crunchy, and these were just…well, potato chips.  The thicker cut gave it some crunch, but it’s not what I typically expect to get from a kettle chip.  Plus, despite the great pesto flavor, the chips were not evenly seasoned – some were great, some weren’t.

The $64,000 question is – was there any smoked mozzarella taste? And I gotta be honest: no.  There was a little general cheesy creaminess that enhanced the pesto flavor, but did I taste the flavors of mozzarella?  No.  Did I taste/smell/breathe smoke?  No.

Did these taste good? Sure.  They would’ve been great if named Pesto Chips.  But for the long name it had, these chips didn’t deliver.  Stick to sweet potato chips, Terra.

Thoughts? Tell me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy