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January 12, 2007
When All You Have is a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail
And when all you have is a deep fryer, everything looks like it needs to be deep-fried.
I got a deep fryer for Christmas and have been excited by the prospect of using it to deep fry some things. Unfortunately, I did an uncommonly good job of clearing out my food stores before I left on vacation, so my stock of easily-fryable items is perilously low. Nonetheless, I remain undeterred; I have a well-documented history of bringing bad cooking ideas to life, and this deep fryer promises to open an entire exciting new vector for terrible, terrible food-making decisions.
Right now I have potatoes and onions lying around, but those wells have already been pretty thoroughly tapped in terms of frying. I have some serrano chili peppers, and I know frying jalapenos is pretty common (or was a few years ago; I haven’t heard of fried jalapenos as much lately) but those are generally combined with some sort of cream cheese filling. I have beans, but I’m not sure that frying beans actually involves a deep-fryer. I’ve tortilla chips, but those are already fried. I’ve got a few suspect cucumbers in the refrigerator, though one of them felt a bit too squishy for comfort and I’m worried the others may turn on me, as well. Plus cucumbers are a bit liquid for frying. What else have I got? Some sticks of Earth Balance non-dairy buttery substance, half a jar of dijon mustard, a carton of apple cider… Right now the best bet seems like the jar of mustard, but that seems like it would be more like a proof of concept or a performance art piece than an act of cooking (“Why did you deep-fry a jar of mustard?” “Because I had a deep fryer and a jar of mustard. Duh.”)
Now I’m getting more desperate. I could deep-fry my flip-flops. Or my pants. Or a lightbulb! It would bathe any room in delicious, artery-clogging goodness!
At this point, I think I’ll just have to go out and buy something that can be fried. Suggestions?
Posted by Zach at January 12, 2007 02:18 PM