Things I Like But Am Not Being Paid To Tell You About. pt. 1.

Things I Like But Am Not Being Paid To Tell You About. 
pt. 1.

by Ian.

Earl's Tortilla Chips. Holy fuck, they are good. 

I first found this out when I was broke and shopping in a store of ill repute here in Minneapolis, probably about 6 years ago. Not being the kind of sucker who will just blindly give $3 to the Frito Lay cartel, I'm constantly on the hunt for cheap snack eats. This has lead me into some interesting scenarios.. a bag of chips with bible verses on the back. A bag of chips with a mouse hole on the back. Really hot chips. Really bland chips.. but the only chip I've found that make me curse by accident are Earl's Tortilla Chips. They clock in at $1.50 a bag and are a bag of fried food FROM HEAVEN. Well, they're actually from Savage, Minnesota. Now thats a name for a grindcore band. Anyway, Earls are seemingly made from equal thirds corn, oil and salt. See? They're onto a winning recipe and this might be where the "old fashioned" comes from on the bag. I can't imagine they have the R&D funds to fiddle. Most importantly, when you open the bag it's fucking PARTY TIME. Do you know how you know that? IT FUCKING SAYS IT ON THE BAG. 

PARTY TIME.

And there is some clip art confetti and balloons to further the point.. but why? Earl has made you a fucking promise. You open this bag and there's gonna be a god damned party in your fucking mouth so you better have some fucking dip because people are on their FUCKING WAY OVER. 

This has sadly been a one-sided love affair with these chips (quick side note: Earl does make other chips and popcorn things, but none of them are are good as the yellow corn tortilla chips. The "restauranté" style are white corn and just taste like a better version of Tostitos. Nothing wrong with that, just don't fucking mention them around me) until one wonderful summer afternoon in northeast Minneapolis. While on break from a gig, I wandered over to a nearby indie convenience store. Like most of these places, they smell of over-ripe bananas, desperation and kerosene. This store was no exception. While idling away my time hunting for strange candy, I see a man ready to make a delivery to an end cap. A chip man. Yes, an Earl's chip man. Could've been Earl himself but that's hard to say, Earl doesn't have a website. Look. This is as close as I could find. But there he was. The man who-could-be-Earl. I knew I had to make my move. 

Some things you find out quickly about a person when you run up to them without warning in a run down mercado. For example, the deliveryman for Earls was most certainly a religious man. I found this out when the look on his face seemed to suggest that he wasn't as used to my patois of rapid fire profanity as I was. All of this cursing was just there to illustrate HOW FUCKING AMAZING THESE CHIPS ARE but that didn't seem to matter. He was scared and probably praying to some god. I didn't want to further harm the small-town-pastor-who-might-be-Earl so I quickly found the door, my only opportunity squandered.

Que sera. A delivery man is only important for the goods he delivers and these goods deliver. I recommend them with some Holy Land™ red pepper hummus (also local, yo!). So run, don't walk to your nearest non-SuperAmerica and take the Earls challenge. You won't regret it.