I love fried food. It goes against all conventional wisdom nowadays to eat very much of it but that doesn’t stop me too often. The problem is that fat makes food taste good. There’s no getting around it. Maybe that’s why the cholesterol lowering drugs Lipitor and Zocor are the top two selling drugs in America. Still, pretty much, if I like something, I’d probably like it better battered up and deep-fried.
For instance, fried Snickers bars are amazing. I bought one at a carnival once and Randy’s family was initially repulsed at the idea. That is until I let several of them have a bite and suddenly they changed their tune. Any battered and fried candy bar is going to be pretty good. Nigella Lawson made fried Mounds bars on her t.v. show “Nigella Bites” so I think that’s a good endorsement of their tastiness.
What else is good? Here are a few of my favorites: fried ice cream, elephant ears, corn dogs from Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick, my mother’s famous homemade fried won ton, Krispy Kreme donuts, fried bananas (called “turon” in Tagalog/Filipino), crab rangoons, fried apple pies, battered and fried corn on the cob, Cheetos, etc. (The list could go on and on.)
What isn’t so good? Well, see that’s where it get’s tricky. I just had my first fried dill pickle yesterday at the behest of a friend to give them a go. Let’s just say, I didn’t have a second helping. The problem is that I don’t care for dill pickles at all so that experience was doomed from the start. I heard that Jay Leno recently had a guest on The Tonight Show whose restaurant serves some sort of hot dog that is wrapped in ground beef, deep fried and served with chili and onions. Sorry but that sounds pretty nasty.
I’ll stick to the basics for now (which for me now includes fried candy bars) and luckily for me I live in the south where they seem to deep fry most everything. My current favorite is chicken fried liver (sort of like chicken fried steak). See? Frying can make just about anything delicious.
[…] Ah, Valentine’s Day is here. Love is in the air. I think that with as big a Christmas as we had, we’ll be keeping our Valentine’s Day celebration pretty low key. The Food Network has had a zillion shows all about chocolate. It’s been wonderful (if you love chocolate). So far the recipe I’m dying to try is Giada De Laurentiis’ Chocolate-Hazelnut Ravioli which are super easy to make and will be fabulous because they are fried and as I’ve learned from living in the south, everything tastes good when it’s fried. Although I enjoy romance and snuggling on the couch, I do have to say love is a lot of work. When I was young, my dad often told me that love wasn’t just the nice things—one was bound to be disappointed or hurt by the beloved as he/she was less than perfect and that was to be expected. He told me that laughing together and holding hands were more important than all the lovey dovey words put together. Randy and I have had our rocky times but they are outweighed by our friendship and I am so thankful for that. I have a doctor’s appointment today which seems appropriate for Valentine’s Day as I’ll get to hear the baby’s heartbeat again. Although I feel her moving around, there’s something about hearing that quick “whoosh whoosh” sound that is so reassuring. […]