Ryan O’Bryan Found the Greatest Cheese Curl Ever

Sorry Chester Cheetah, but your cheese puffs have nothing on these.

Allow me to introduce you to "Kettle Kurls", the best cheese curl your tongue will ever have the pleasure of tasting. Made by the Kitchen Cooked company out of Bushnell, Illinois, a small town about 50 miles east of the Illinois / Iowa border.

What's so special about these particular curls? For starters, they are the cheesiest cheese curls I have ever eaten, and at 36 years old, I've eaten my fair share of cheese curls. Not only do you get a healthy dose of delicious, salty cheese powder on each curl, but the curl itself is cheese flavored.

Secondly, the texture. You know how sometimes when you eat another brand of cheese puffs, you'll get some that are a little softer on the inside than others? That's EVERY curl in a bag of Kettle Curls. They're light and airy, and at the risk of sounding cliché, literally melt in your mouth.

Finally, the price. You could drop three to four bucks on a name brand bag of cheese puffs, or you could go with a bag of Kettle Curls which will only set you back $1.50 or $2.00 depending on where you get them, which leads me to the only drawback of Kettle Curls — finding them.

I first discovered them a year or two ago at Schnuck's on Evansville's north side where I do the weekly grocery shopping. Being a lover of cheese and saving money, I grabbed a bag. Much to my dismay, they were only available for a limited time, as I was able to purchase a bag only once or twice after that before they disappeared from the shelf.

For several weeks, I would turn my cart down the snack aisle in hopes that my new found love had returned, only to be disappointed each time. As time went on, I quit looking, but never forgetting those glorious cheese concoctions.

Then, a month or so back, I was at Rural King on St. Joe picking up a part for our sump pump, or looking for a trailer hitch for my truck, or some such thing, whatever it was, I remember not finding what I was I looking for. As I walked toward the door empty-handed, there they were, sitting on a shelf in the middle of Rural King's snack section among the other variety's of chips, cookies, and general snacks the store has to offer. The generic red and white bag calling out to me as if to say, "I've been here waiting for you." I imagine the reunion looked similar to the movies when two people run in slow motion toward each other from opposite sides of the beach or a field full of wildflowers.

I've been to the "King" a few times since then for other odds and ends, and each time, the curls are still there which leads me to believe they are a regularly stocked item. Now that doesn't mean I'm going to start grocery shopping at Rural King (there's no meat or produce department so I couldn't even if I wanted to), but Kettle Kurls are good enough to be the only reason I stop in.