Best Fries Ever

Tonight I succeeded it making the best french fries I have ever made. To be fair, I have to qualify that by adding that they were prepared and frozen originally by Western Family, the store brand at my local grocery store. I must also explain my claim to french frying brilliance by adding that I cooked them in an air fryer.

This is the first time I have used an air fryer because I just bought it today. At first I had my doubts, but now I am convinced. This is likely to be my go-to cooking machine. Let me tell you how this transformative thinking came about.

A few days ago I accidentally left the oven on all night. Let me repeat that. ALL NIGHT. I can almost hear you gasping from here. Yes, I know the risk of a calamity was huge. And, yes, the waste of electrical energy was probably enormous. I know, I know, I know. The guilt clutched at my heart as soon as I realized what I had done.

I had had a bad night’s sleep and had got out of bed at least three times during the night, but I just assumed it was a consequence of indigestion or a weak bladder. When I finally gave up trying to sleep at about 6:00, I did what I normally do in the morning; I went into the living room, had a glass of water, and checked into the internet on my computer.

As I was sitting there, I realized the air in the apartment smelled different than it usually does, and I checked the fireplace to make sure it was behaving properly. Then I checked outside both front and back doors to see if something was wrong there, but couldn’t come up with anything obvious. So, I settled back in to look at emails and the day’s news.

At some point I could hear a clicking sound, but I didn’t recognize it. I looked at the baseboard heater to ensure it was off, and it was. Then I checked my phone and laptop to see if something unusual was happening electronically, but nothing showed itself.

So, then I wandered around the living room and kitchen to try to track down the noise. Ultimately, I saw it. The oven was still showing, in bright red electronic numbers, 425. Oh no! My heart sank. After I had heated up my small, one-person meal last night, I had failed to turn off the oven! Calamity.

In my imagination I had allowed my oven to use up my personal, unofficial, and very frugal energy allotment for the week. Perhaps even the month, I had no idea. I just knew it was a lot of electricity until, that is, I checked with my power company.

BC Hydro provides a very convenient record online that shows how much power I have used and I can view the chart for monthly, weekly, and daily records. When I checked the next day I was surprised to see how little difference that mistake made in my power usage. In fact, I had used more energy a few days earlier when I had heated up the apartment with the baseboard heater. What??? Yes, it’s true. The baseboard heater is more energy wasteful than the oven.

Anyway, the whole experience got me thinking about cooking, ovens, and power and I decided to buy an air fryer to cook my one-person meals in future. Tonight was my first air fryer experience and it was a huge success. I may never use the regular oven again for my personal dinners. My world has changed.