Dirty Word

In my mother's food lexicon, there was one dirty word.

Frying.

She never fried anything that I can recall, not even an egg. She might saute' something in butter, but fry in hot oil? No, indeed! She saw frying as the royal road to a fat family, an idea that horrified her. As a result, we never had potato chips or fried chicken or any of those fatty foods while she was the cook.

So, when I decided to exercise my new crinkle cutter, a garage sale bargain given scouted out by cousin J-Yah, I did so with a certain amount of trepidation and guilt. Trepidation because this is a skill I didn't learn at my mother's elbow and guilt because, you know, she's watching from heaven.

Turns out, it's pretty easy. I used a heavy iron skillet and about half an inch of canola oil, set it over a medium-high burner and, when it was hot enough to make a scrap of potato sizzle, I put in my crinkle-cut red potato pieces and let 'er rip.

I was hoping to approximate the fries we so enjoyed in Belgium so I fried them twice, once to soften the potatoes and, after cooling them, once again to crisp the outside. As they came out of the second frying, I salted them lightly and served them with - what else? - burgers. They weren't Belgian but they were darn good, nicely crispy and browned.

Frying may be a naughty word but, damn, it's good!