I am something of a fan of Kettle Chips (a fact that you may have figured out from this post about my family's road trip days and potato chips). I love that small batch, thick cut, darkly cooked taste that they have. It's so different from the rest of the national, mainstream brands that it's hard to even think of them as they same type of snack.

Recently, I got my hands on a bag of the Death Valley Chipotle potato chips, winner of the Kettle Peoples' Choice contest earlier this year. The winning flavor of that contest each year then joins the product line (at least for a while, depending on its popularity) so this is a flavor that is now on store shelves.

My feeling about the Death Valley Chipotle chip is that it's good, but not great. I prefer the Thai Spice over this heat profile (which might be because I'm not a huge fan of smokiness and these are definitely smoky). However, they were still tasty enough that I had a hard time not finishing the bag the first night I opened it. If you like a smoky, spice chip, then you should definitely add this flavor to your cart the next time you see it.

Oh, and one last, cool thing about this chip. The folks at Kettle have partnered with the Death Valley Natural History Association (DVNHA). They are donating $1 to the DVNHA for every Facebook user who downloads a special Death Valley temperature gauge that monitors the desert heat. If you want to grab that application, click here.

Here's an indication of how chip-centric my life's been lately -- last night on the subway home from work, a man stepped onto the train, and from 10 or so feet away, I could tell, just by spotting a smidge of the bottom corner of his chip bag, that he was enjoying some Deep River Snacks Olive Oil & Rosemary Potato Chips. I've tasted well over 150 varieties of plain and flavored chips in the past two months (and have learned to rely on plain lettuce for all my other sustenance), but in the taste test linked below have no doubt skipped over one of your faves. I wanna know which ones they are, so please shout it out in the comments section. List of chips is after the jump.

Flavored Potato Chip Taste Test

Plain Potato Chip Taste Test

Do you have a food that came to symbolize a period of time in your life? For me, that would be Zapp's potato chips. The chips came to be a symbol of my college years, and all the time I spent hanging out with friends in local bars.

Before I started going to the bars downtown, I had never heard of Zapp's. Those chips just happened to be ubiquitous to the bars in Athens, GA, where I went to college. However, as they were the some of the only food available at the bars, I did munch down my fair share of them. The chips, with names like Spicy Cajun Crawtators and Cajun Dill Gator-tators, are pretty good, though not the best. The flavors are on the unique side and they are always nice and crunchy.

I haven't had Zapp's in a very long time. I've had them since graduating from college, but I don't eat much in the way of potato chips as part of my long term health goals. Even though I don't eat them, just seeing a bag takes me back to the good times I had, hanging out with friends at the local pub. Do you have a food memory like this?

For years, I avoided potato chip flavors other than the occasional dip into sour cream & onion. And then I found Miss Vickie's, which have quickly become my guilty flavorful snack. Instead of just the classic concoctions, the Canadian brand looks outside the box with combinations like lime with pepper, roasted red pepper grill, sweet chili with sour cream, and my simple favorite: Honey and Roasted Garlic.

I half love this brand because the flavors are so intense that it keeps me from eating more than a handful or two. But that's not quite the case with the honey/garlic variety. It's an incredibly smooth-flavored chip that has the potent taste of garlic that's cut with the vaguely there sweetness of honey. If you're a garlic fiend, these chips should be crispy, garlicy heaven.

Merge that with some tasty dip or maybe some sharp cheddar, and the whole thing is even better.

For the longest time, the only onion and garlic flavored chip I could find at my supermarket was the Wise brand. Which was fine, since I like Wise chips, but I never understood why no one else was making them. Now, obviously, this was probably a regional thing when I was growing up, and I've since found other companies that make onion and garlic chips (including Utz and Boyer's).

But no other brand tastes like the Wise brand. Both the onion and the garlic are strong. It's not one of those chips that taste like someone just dusted the surface with onion and garlic, this is deep down taste (you will want to brush your teeth before you talk to/kiss anyone or go to bed).

If you're from New England, then Cape Cod Potato Chips are probably a staple in your cupboard (or wherever you may keep your chips). The original kettle chips are quite tasty, but let's talk about the various flavored chips that Cape Cod also sells.

The Sea Salt & Vinegar chips are strong and crunchy, while the Beachside BBQ chips taste a little different than other BBQ chips, as they have molasses and chili pepper. The Jalapeno & Cheddar chips are very strong when you open the bag but taste great. The Cheddar Jack & Sour Cream are so flavorful that you don't need any kind of dip to go along with them (Cape Cod also makes a new Honey Dijon chips and Buttermilk Ranch, but my local store was out of them).

The last time I was in Boulder, I spent most of the time in the hospital with a broken elbow. I fell off of a horse because the saddle was not properly tightened. The main thing that kept me happy in all my pain was Glacier Ice Cream. You didn't think I was going to say the potato chips, did you? That ice cream was some of the best ice cream I've ever had. Please, Glacier, open one in St. Louis! Oh, right, I'm not a fan of chains. I forgot for a second there.

I discovered Boulder Canyon potato chips not in Boulder but in an incredible locally owned general store in St. Louis (hopefully I redeemed my support for local business with that comment). I wanted to pick up some chips to try as part of AOL's upcoming flavored chip taste test and Boulder Canyon Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper Chips met two basic criteria:

1. They were all natural. I would normally buy organic chips, but the shop didn't have any organic ones.
2. Sea salt and cracked pepper is a flavor that my husband loves. This is particularly important since I don't eat many chips. If he didn't like them, the chips would live to be old and soggy.

How did my husband and I like the chips? At first, I thought they were too spicy (I might still think they are too spicy), but I can't stop eating them. More importantly, my husband loved them! The bag is almost empty. Danger: do not keep an open bag of these anywhere near where you will be working or watching TV.