I have a couple of backlogged posts to work on about creative, fresh, original meals cooked with organic produce straight from the farm, but those posts will be delayed because there are new flavored chips on the shelves at Target.

And even more importantly, they're not very good.

Now, to be fair, I onlly had two varieties, because you can only buy and eat so many bags of potato chips at any one time. This is the Target store brand's first foray into ripple chips, which join kettle-style chips, weird baked crisps, and one flavor of flavored corn chip in the Pretending To Look Fancy section of the chip aisle.

I tried "Macaroni and Cheese" and "Loaded Baked Potato", the first because it would answer the question, "What the fuck?", and the second because I'm waiting for the day someone actually gets this fucking flavor right. Today is not that day. Left on the shelf were General Tso's and some kind of Roasted Vegetable flavor that I could remember, and possibly one or two others I've forgotten.

Anyway, the Macaroni and Cheese chips tasted like potato chips. If you got a particularly heavily dusted chip, by which I mean it had somewhere between five and ten parts per million flavor powder on it, you could sort of pick up a vague hint of cheese packet cheese powder cheese, but other than that it just tasted like ripple chips.

The loaded baked potato chips were "loaded" with an infinitesimal dusting of fake smoke flavor in an attempt to evoke bacon. There was no vague dairy flavor, no cheese flavor, not even the overpowering beef bouillion and dried onion flavor that makes Old Dutch's attempt at this chip unspeakably vile. Just some smoke powder.

This is especially disappointing because of all the problems Archer Farms chips have had, a lack of flavor in the flavor powder has not been one of them. Maybe this was an early batch, and the nozzles clogged. Maybe they got sold some kind of super-intense flavor powder by Monsanto and didn't taste it to find out it was just diatomaceous earth and salt. Or maybe they just kind of suck. I don't know. I'm sure I'll get around to trying the other flavors. Well, except the one I just remembered:

"Greek-Inspired", redolent with the flavors of feta cheese and kalamata olive. I don't like olives, which may not be an issue with these chips - if you hate macaroni and cheese, these will be the best macaroni and cheese flavored potato chips you'll ever eat - but still. Maybe this is the time they pull out all the stops, with tons of powdered acid and brine. I won't risk it.