In the company of friends last evening, I popped the cherry on my new deep fryer. I even made the tempura batter myself, by using a vegan recipe from the Internet that everyone could enjoy. I think it called for something like a cup of flower, teaspoons of salt and pepper, one half teaspoon of baking soda, a cup of water, and a teaspoon of vinegar. Everything we fried, with the exception of the strawberries, turned out really tasty. The strawberries just became very mushy on the inside. Although we purchased much more to fry, we did not get to everything. We were also going to consume all this fried food with some of Fawn’s patented vegan sushi, but the rice maker broke so all we had was greasy, fried foods. All told, we fried up baby carrots, mushrooms, strawberries and broccoli. Once the vegans had their fill, Steve and I fried chicken and a Snickers bar. Here are some pictures:
Here’s the kitchen, as seen from the desk chair in the living room. You can see the fryer on the table. You can also see the box fan in the window (we don’t have A/C), and the garbage can behind the stool, which is currently filled with oily, acrid-scented paper towels from this morning’s clean-up effort.
That’s the deep fryer. That long phallic looking thing in the middle is the handle for the basket. There’s some kind of timer on the side there, but we did not use it. Behind the timer is the hose for draining the oil. Since nobody ever told me that it’s bad to put oil down the drain, that’s exactly where I put it this morning.
There she is, spread open like a drunk catholic girl after a frat party. Can you smell the grease from where you are right now? Are you salivating at the thought of frying up some flour and making your own donuts or funnel cakes? Do not lie. I know you are.
There’s Brian, pondering over the directions. I didn’t want to use the directions, so I guess he figured someone should read them before we started.
That’s my batter. Delicious, creamy, tempura batter. And Steve, trying to make us look like some sort of alternative lifestyle couple. I guess I didn’t help matters by pouting like an effeminate model. And before you say anything about my hair, I’m shaving it tonight.
There are some carrots and mushrooms, mid-fry.
There are some mushrooms, post-fry. The carrots disappeared rather quickly, because they tasted very, very good.
The deep f…what the fuck? It’s spelled f-r-y-e-r? Why the hell have I been writing f-r-i-e-r this whole time? What kind of moron am I? Why didn’t any of you assholes correct me? Great, now I have to go back and spell-check this entire document.
A group photo seemed to be in order, but because I had never used this feature before, I thought we had about a minute to take our positions, when in actuality we only had two seconds. Oops!
The moral of this story is, if you for some reason do not own a deep fryer, get one. I suggest the DeLonghi model, which can be purchased on the cheap from your local big-box store (Target, WalMart, et al.). You will never think about food the same way again. I’m dead serious. Instead of saying things like, “Oh honey, this dinner you prepared for our anniversary looks fantastic,” you will say that, but think to yourself, “…but it would probably taste so much better fried in oil.” Also, every candy bar you see will give you the idea to go home and deep fry it. The possibilities are endless.
