2 Dec 2014

And Then A Confession….

A confession? That comes a little bit down the ways. First the news.

Yet floods more money on the way!! Where does it all keep coming from? This time it’s two point a bit billion for flood defences. Man, we really must be flush with cash. Oh, sorry.

I heard this news on the news being presented, in great detail, by the lady reading the news. We then quickly cut to a lady who was standing by some water, the better to illustrate what water actually looks like, who recounted the whole story with just the added, extremely helpful, information that a flood happens when a river can’t hold any more and it doesn’t run away quickly enough and thus spills onto the surrounding land.

Then, as this is Government money, yeah, right, we cut to yet another lady who was just standing in a street in front of a door with the number ten on it, who went, word for word, through the whole damn thing again. Yo, TV people, I got it first time, okay?

The other news item related to many poor folk who, in their youth, got hooked on drugs and now find themselves still hooked but in their forties.

Leaving aside the point that the health fellows are always telling us drugs kill, so how did they get to be wandering around at forty plus, it gave me cause to ponder my own recent fall into addiction. And what follows is my confession.

Over a period of three or so months I’ve been battling with this addiction and have now taken the decision to come clean here in an attempt to cleanse my soul and also as a warning to others.

I’ve become addicted to fried potato wedges, coated with sea salt and black pepper, dipped in sour cream and chive source. You’re probably wondering what the hay I’m talking about; a chip’s a chip – end of. Trust me, potato wedges take the humble chip to a whole new level. Much the same as deep fried, battered onion rings take the bland old onion right up there to culinary excellence.

Now this, I’m sure, will conjure up images of great domesticity as we proceed to the grocery store, spend twenty minutes choosing the perfect potatoes to produce the maximum wedges with minimum wastage, chives at their very greenest and bestest and all the other ingredients required for the manufacture of the sour cream.

With all the makings duly purchased, it’s home we go and into the kitchen which already has that heady aroma of recently baked bread and a background hint of fresh coffee. All kitchens smell like that, right?

With the potatoes washed, peeled and washed again, we carefully cut them to the optimum wedge shape, flash fry them, remove from the oil, dab dry, coat them in a hint of flour and then roll them in the pre-prepared sea salt and black pepper. Back into the oil and fry gently for about twenty minutes, turning occasionally, until golden brown and crisp on the outside and fluffily soft inside.

Meanwhile, back on the planet I actually inhabit, it goes something like this. We hit the supermarket, go to what they call the deli shelves, put a plastic tub of sour cream and chives in the trolley, steam-roller on to the frozen food area, locate a  bag of  wedges  with  the salt and black pepper coating, check-out, get home, fire-up the deep fat fryer, bung a portion in, wait five minutes and serve in a dish with the sour cream and chives on the side. Job done.

Nutritional value? Your questioning the nutritional value? Well, that can obviously be found in the oil and those tiny green bits in the sour cream.

My purchasing and cooking methods may not appeal to those of you who enjoy cooking but, personally, I’m not greatly into the preparation thing and don’t see the fun in starting to prepare dinner twenty minutes after eating lunch. Frozen meals and fast food were obviously invented with me and my kind in mind.

All that aside, let this be a salutary warning to those of you who may be tempted to try potato wedges with all their differing coatings. Try them and  you may well become hooked as, indeed, have I.

Is that sad or wot?

Quote;  Orson Welles.

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”

2 comments:

A K Haart said...

We don't spend much time cooking either. My mother-in-law did a superb Sunday roast - roast beef, Yorkshire puds, roast spuds and real gravy plus apple pie and cream to follow.

I miss it, but it took her ages to prepare and we don't want to spend all Sunday morning in the kitchen.

Mac said...

....roast beef, Yorkshire puds, roast spuds and real gravy plus apple pie and cream to follow...

Mmmmm. Oh boy! Need to get to a Toby Carvery right quick!!