Junk Food Nation, it’s Halloween!  I mentioned before – I’m not TOTALLY into Halloween, for various reasons.  However, the Junk Food Gal and I did get into the Pumpkin Spirit, carving out this bad boy:

It’s an owl!  It is!

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “You painted the pumpkin.” Yeah, I dunno.  That’s what the kit we bought said to do. Who am I to argue???

Tonight many of you will have kids showing up at your doorsteps, begging for candy.  Or, maybe you yourself will have kids who are going out to Trick or Treat. But how old is TOO old to Trick or Treat? Obviously, when your doorbell rings, and there’s some 23-year old college kid wearing a Bud Light neon sign around his crotch holding out an empty plastic grocery bag asking for Skittles – he’s too old to Trick or Treat.  But it’s a sliding scale…as you look younger and younger down the age scale, there IS a cutoff somewhere – isn’t there?

There is.  And the answer is when puberty strikes – NO MORE TRICK OR TREATING. Once your son starts growing facial hair, it’s too late for him to go out dressed as Sponge Bob asking for Reese’s Cups with a shaky and cracking voice.  Once your daughter starts physically developing and all of a sudden wants to wear the same slutty costume that you JUST saw at happy hour after work on some bartender – yeah, it’s time to pack up the old Princess Jasmine costume. Sorry, IT’S TOO LATE – no more wandering the streets with a sack ringing strangers’ doorbells, kids. Go do what other kids your age do nowadays – go to a friend’s “Halloween Party” and try to sneak beer from the parents’ fridge.  Sigh – I am never having children.

Today’s junk food: New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese!  You know, I wanted to review some kind of Halloween candy for Halloween – but I didn’t have any. None. I was stunned when I looked through my stash. I have chip bags galore, but one scrap of candy??? ZIPPY.

So I decided to go with the next best thing – a snack that had orange and black in color on the bag.  It’s a stretch, I KNOW.  Sigh. Anyways, here we go!

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese: The Money Shot

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese were purchased at my local grocery, where they were randomly hidden at the end of one aisle.  I’m not sure if they are ACTUALLY new, despite what the bag says, and I have no idea how long they’ve been listed on the company website.  I do like Stacy’s products, though, having reviewed them a couple times before.

Glad to know these are lively

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese is Stacy’s first venture into a cheese-based chip.  Kinda crazy, since they’ve been around for almost 20 years.  The look of these chips are standard, and I’m curious what their cheesy recipe is. I’m so used to dipping Stacy’s Pita Chips into hummus or the like, that flavoring the chip to stand on it’s own is different – I’m skeptical, a little bit.

Five cheeses??? Whoa-ho!

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese has five cheeses, huh? This should be interesting.  I’m a Cheez-It fan, so will these stack up?

140 cal per serving

I like the chive and rosemary

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese doesn’t skimp on cheese ingredients, which is good. Cheddar, Romano, Blue, Swiss, Parmesan – all there.  Plus, plenty of onion powder, rosemary, parsley, chives.  Seems like a complex list of flavors here.  Will it work together?

Thick and square with decent powder

New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese smelled LIGHTLY of cheese as soon as I opened the bag. Which cheese? Very vague – not a distinct cheese flavor, just a general creamy cheesy smell.  This is normally not a good sign.

Flecks of something beneath the surface

I munched on a bunch of these, and here’s what I’ll say about New Stacy’s Pita Chips C’est La Cheese – it’s a very good pita chip, a very good chip generally, but I’m not sure if it’s the best CHEESE chip/cracker I’ve ever had.

Texture: Very good crispy crunch that you’ve come to expect from a Stacy’s Pita Chip.

Powder: The cheese powder is decent, and has a good cheddar taste.  When I licked it off the chip, the cheese taste was very strong – cheddar and romano were the flavors I tasted most.

Herbs: The chip itself had a strong chive taste, and I definitely caught notes of rosemary in there.  With the onion powder, there was definitely a nice herby onion savory taste to these.

But did it all work together?  Sort of – very savory taste, but the cheese flavor wasn’t as strong as I’d like. It was very muted, even though as I chewed there was definite cheese flavor.  Maybe in this day and age of having EXXXXTREME CHEESSY snacks, I am just used to having the cheese flavor pop in my mouth.  These were subtle …. to me, this didn’t taste like a CHEESE chip, it tasted like a evenly balanced cheese/onion chip.  Which was great – again, these tasted great.  But NOT QUITE the cheese chip I wanted.

Decent marks, Stacy’s…very eatable.

PURCHASED AT: Safeway

COST: $3.50 on sale for $3.00

Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy