Fry it up

I am anti-frying. I hate the way it smokes up the house, and I don't appreciate getting up the next morning to the smell of stale fried food, either....not to mention that the scent also infiltrates my hair, clothes, and even the cat's fur.

Yet last night, I turned to it as a last resort, and I'm glad I did.

I finally pulled out my mandoline slicer and gave it a whirl (after two months of keeping it in its shiny new box). I successfully cut waffle fries from russet potatoes, and they looked wonderful (but kind of thin). I oiled them up with olive oil, salted them, and sent them to the oven to bake.

Twenty minutes later, they emerged soggy and....gray. Yes, that's right. A weird, charcoal-colored gray, leading me to believe that the olive oil had smoked and become carcinogenic. I tossed them, and panicked since the fish was ready already.

Ken came in and saved the day. Twenty more minutes and a hot skillet of oil later, we had lovely, scrumptious (yet not at all heart-healthy) russet and sweet potato "fries." Simply divine. The sweet potatoes, especially, tasted like a forbidden treat.

When we got home two hours later from running an errand, our house did smell faintly of McDonald's. Yet thanks to my vented stove fan, the house doesn't smell too bad today.

I think I'll be trying that again sometime.