Random Tater Pics of the Day #136 and #137

These Somebody Else's Fries are from friend, co-pilot, and wingman Q when he last visited Lobster Shanty in Selbyville, Delaware.

According to Q, a cheeseburger and fries are literally all he can order at a seafood restaurant. And I thought I was a picky eater! Thanks, Quentin!

French Fry Diary 514: Burger King's French Fry Burger

Burger King announced yesterday that they were coming out with a new burger next week, called the French Fry Burger, it's a burger, (you ready for this?) with French fries on it.

Perhaps Burger King thinks it's reinvented the wheel here, but really, putting French fries on your burger is as old as burgers and fries themselves. I've been doing it since I was a kid, and know dozens of other folks personally who do it. It's officially called planking (no, not that planking) or sandwiching, and I've talked about here on the blog many times before. What is ironic is that Burger King's new fries are as conducive to sandwiching as their older fries. Too little too late, BK.

Now there may some novelty in having someone else do it for you, but that doesn't work for everyone. A catastrophically picky eater would never be able to order this burger plain at Burger King. The clerk's head would explode. It's hard enough getting just a plain hamburger, I can't imagine trying to get one with fries on it…

And it's not just customers who have been doing the planking, some restaurants are also getting into the act besides BK. Rally's/Checkers have been doing it for a while with their Fry Lover's Burger, and fancier places have been doing onion rings and strings on burgers for decades. There's nothing new under the sun, or ahem, under the bun.

Special thanks to my GAR! Podcast partner Ray for hipping me to the BK news.

French Fry Diary 508: The Crossroads at Garwood

While The Bride and I were attending The DIS Weekend Meet up in North Jersey, where we rarely go, we thought it might be cool to get together with good friends we don't see all that often. We had to pick a restaurant carefully, and not just because of my catastrophic picky eating this time, but also as one of our friends is vegetarian. We decided on the Crossroads at Garwood.

At first glance, this place is part New Orleans and part rock/jazz club. I loved it. While it was loud at points, I enjoyed the company, and the music. The one act taking the stage, that I absolutely loved, was the Garden State Saxophone Quartet. They did a killer "Sweet Child of Mine."

Now here's the crazy part, especially regarding me being a catastrophically picky eater. One of our party got, as an appetizer, grilled alligator tail, and believe it or not, I tried it. It tasted a little like slightly chewy chicken, and had a little bit of a zing in the aftertaste. It could have used a little barbeque sauce actually, but not bad.

All in all, the alligator was better than the fries. The burger I got was pretty good, but the fries that came on the side were disappointing. These were deep fried frozen regular cuts, and that's it, and not very good ones at that. For a rock club/restaurant that goes so far to have grilled alligator tail on the menu, they couldn't get just a little fancier with the fries? Loved the company, the music, and the night out, but the fries were disappointing.

French Fry Diary 458: Freaky Eaters II

Yeah, I know, after last time, I should just avoid this TLC show like the plague. This is the show that finds folks who are addicted to one particular food, and then they display them like freaks and try to force Health Nazi therapy on them.

I've hated this program every time I've watched, but they drew me in again with another episode about French fries. In this case it's Eric, and as the highly original episode title states, he's "Addicted to French Fries," and Doctors Dow and Virgin are back to browbeat the poor young man into changing his ways.

Amber, the young woman in the first episode had a genetic condition, and like the Clockwork Orange mad scientists they are, Dow and Virgin tried to change her. What was odd was that Amber's daughter, who did not have the condition, they didn't give a crap about. Her daughter was why Amber was on the show.

540 pounds of fries... 

Here, Eric was already being harangued by a nagging wife and mother. I was sure Dow and Virgin would just add to it. Now here's the kicker, Eric is Eric Willmann, of The Daily Fry, which is linked here on the sidebar to the left. Yeah, it's true, Eric is my brother from another mother, a fellow French fry blogger. I was shocked that Dow and Virgin were after one of us. We are an endangered species after all.

The two Doctors' first plan of attack is to show Eric what's going in his body, first a vat of transfat (not pretty), and then 540 pounds of French fries. I had to wonder what happens after this vulgar display. Do they throw the fries out? What about the people who don't have enough to eat, and these two are throwing out 540 pounds of fries! They called it a 'box of death,' so I guess the homeless starve tonight...

Dow and Virgin

Next they gave poor Eric blood tests, with results indicating high cholesterol and potential heart disease. Not funny, and very serious. That's how determined they were to break this active skateboarder who liked writing about French fries. In the end, they did break him. He ate pizza and they skateboarded, I'm sure for the producers, that was a great end to the show.

Eric Willmann of The Daily Fry

However, anyone that clicks the link for The Daily Fry knows what the real loss is. They killed a fellow blogger. Nothing since August of 2011. Eric is doing well. He's not as picky an eater as he used to be. I would assume he's healthier, but he's not writing about the favorite fried food any more.

At least not yet, but here's Eric himself answering my question about it in the comments section of his blog. I asked: "…why did you stop updating your blog here? Was it because you aren’t eating fries that often any more?"

And here's Eric's reply a few days later: "I have only been eating fries once a week. But I should start updating again here soon. keep posted".

There you go. Time will tell…

French Fry Diary 420: The Supersizers Go... Victorian

I caught this one on The Cooking Channel. "The Supersizers Go..." is a BBC show unfortunately inspired by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me. The hosts, food critic Giles Coren and radio personality Sue Perkins, pretend to visit a specific time period each episode and basically bitch about the grossness and nutritional non-value of that era.

I discovered the Victorian episode while flipping through the channels and discovered them talking fish and chips. I was hooked, pun unintended. I set the DVR for record when it was repeated later in the evening so I could write about it for you fine folks.

I liked Sue right away as she was also a fussy eater, maybe not a catastrophically picky one, but still a non-adventurous pain in the butt after my own heart. The first mention of the favorite fried food was regarding breakfast. The Victorians ate fried potatoes for breakfast, among other fattening items, fun stuff like mutton cutlets and smoked mackerel with anchovies, all of which they noted the calorie counts.

Among the oddities and goodies I learned in the show include that despite her horrible diet, Queen Victoria lived to the grand old age of eighty-one. I guess fried potatoes every day are a bad idea. I also learned, and this one's for the "Doctor Who" fans, that jelly babies, at least according to this show, date back to Victoria's era. Maybe The Doctor introduced them early.

Something else I've gotten from the episode is that in Victorian England, despite the fried potatoes and jelly babies, they ate a lot of disgusting crap. I'm talking cow's brains, heads, and ears, and that's just for starters. Luckily though, after dinner, Giles and Sue went out to a chippie for fish and chips, a street dish that originated at this time.

Fish and chips, again, according to the show, comes from Jewish immigration to the UK from Poland and Russia. Jewish families could not light a flame after sundown on Fridays so they battered and fried their fresh fish to make them last longer for the weekend. Again, Sue steals my heart by saying fish and chips is one of the greatest inventions of all ages, even over and above the electric lightbulb.

Probably one of the few dishes they actually enjoy throughout the episode, they sit and happily eat their fish and chips, from newspaper cones, with their hands. Yeah, baby. Potato croquettes pop up later, as do many courses of garbage dinners, a trip to a pub, and a Christmas meal. Trust me, the fish and chips were the highlight of this fairly educational romp.

French Fry Diary 146: Catastrophically Picky Eaters

Imagine me standing up in front of a roomful of strangers, and saying, "Hi, my name is Glenn Walker, and I am a catastrophically picky eater." Sometimes at mealtimes out with a group of people, or before I was married on dates, I have felt like I should be a part of some Picky Eaters Anonymous group like that. Even here on French Fry Diary I have invented the term, catastrophically picky eater for myself, at first as a joke, and sometimes as a defense mechanism.

Yeah, I like, no, scratch that, I love French fries. And there are a few foods that I also really enjoy, but there are far more that I really don't, and won't even try. I'm pretty strictly meat and potatoes. Over the course of my relationship and later marriage to The Bride I have branched out a bit. Pizza and Chinese food, for example, are things that I never would have touched in my teen years. And I have endeavored to try at least one new thing every time we go on vacation. So I'm not completely insane.

But. I just saw a show on the Food Network that made me not only think I'm completely normal, but made me rethink if I'm even in the running for that Catastrophically Picky Eater title. The show was called "My Life in Food" and the episode "I'm an Adult Picky Eater." Wow.

The episode followed three adults - a woman who pretty much only ate breadsticks, a man grilled cheese, and yes, a woman who ate the favorite fried food. It also talked about a website specifically for adult picky eaters, Picky Eating Adults Support, and a convention (a little one) for folks with this problem. And it is a problem, these folks are definitely suffering. I guess I'm not a catastrophically picky eater after all.

In closing, it is worth noting, that at their get-together, most of them ordered French fries. Come on, who doesn't like French fries? …well, maybe, one or two of these folks, but that's okay.