Martinis and French Fries

The perils of breaking up, entitled "Martinis and French Fries," Barbara Norman's entry in the Del Mar Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest from September 2008.



Great stuff, and mmmm... fries...

Poetry and Cheese

On topic because The Pop Shop in Collingswood, NJ has terrific fries, that are suitable for both cheese and poetry...

The Pop Shop Cheesy Poetry Contest

Enter today!

April is National Grilled Cheese month and The Pop Shop, with over 30 grilled cheese variations on its menu, is the place to celebrate! Along with being National Grilled Cheese Month, April is also National Poetry Month. The Pop Shop loves both, so we're hosting our fourth annual Pop Shop Poetry Contest.

We're looking for great poems, limericks or haikus about something Pop Shop related. The winning bards - one child and one adult - will each receive a free T-shirt and a gift certificate for a free lunch.

To enter, e-mail thepopshopcafe@aol.com or mail your entry to:

The Pop Shop Contest
729 Haddon Avenue
Collingswood, NJ 08108

The deadline is April 22, 2009. Winners will be named on April 28 in a ceremony at The Pop Shop.

See below for poems from previous years' contests:

http://www.thepopshopusa.com/specialevents/2008poetrycontest.html
http://www.thepopshopusa.com/specialevents/2007poetrycontest.html
http://www.thepopshopusa.com/specialevents/2006poetrycontest.html

French Fries and Toast

The fine folks at October Road Films not only supply us with this cool music video, but also accompanying recipes for the subjects of the tune.



FRENCH FRIES:
Ingredients: * Potatoes * Oil for deep frying

PREPARATION:
Peel and cut potatoes into even strips. Soak potatoes in cold water for 1 hour. Fry in deep fat at 325° for 5 minutes. Drain. Increase heat to 375° and fry until French fries are tender and nicely browned.

TOAST:
Ingredients: * Bread * Toaster

PREPARATION:
Take two pieces of bread out of the bag and place them in a toaster. When ready, it will automatically pop up. Grab you some jam and maybe some sugar. Smear that mess onto the toasted bread and eat up!

(Serve both with chocolate milk)

French Fry Diary 13: Hesburger

In the summer of 2007 I visited Helsinki, Finland. For someone like me who is not only a catastrophically fussy eater but also a fast food fanatic, new experiences and foreign lands can be a bit of a problem sometimes. So when I found Hesburger in the mall near our hotel in Helsinki, I knew I had to try it.

In appearance, it looks very much like a Burger King (especially in the logo and font) or Hardees, but it’s not. Hesburger is indeed its own entity. It was set up like your typical Burger King restaurant, only without outside walls and dropped right in the middle of the mall, with foot traffic on all sides. Its location was so logical I had to wonder why we didn’t have fast food places done like this here in America.

Now, surprisingly (to me at least), most folks in Finland speak English. And this is opposed to London (our stop before Helsinki) where many of the people I met mysteriously did not speak English. But this lack of a language barrier made life in Helsinki pretty easy in the communication department – until I got to Hesburger that is. The folks behind the counter were among the only non-English-speaking Finns I encountered.

Now I knew that "pomme frites" was French fries. That was easy – a trick I picked up from the Malcolm McDowell movie "Time After Time" where a time-displaced H.G. Wells ordered French fries for his first time at a McDonald’s. The hard part was ordering a hamburger plain, with nothing on it. After a lot of primitive sign language and hand signals and much repeating of “just bun and meat” together we pulled it off.

The food itself, burger and fries-wise, were more applicable to Hardees than Burger King. The burger was fried not chargrilled, but not untasty, and the fries were slightly greasy shoestrings, but a definite oasis for this fast food junkie. If you ever go to Scandinavia, definitely drop by Hesburger to feed your junk food monkey.


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Fries on a Stick

I don’t know what it is, this pic sent to me by a fan of the blog, but oh my, it is truly a thing of beauty...


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The Golden French Fry Awards

Journalist and columnist Jeff Walker (no relation) has given out his first annual Golden French Fry Awards and Sour Pickle Awards in his hometown of Culpepper, Virginia.

Getting both high and low marks is the local McDonald’s while the local Chick-Fil-A gets the highest honors.

Check out the whole story here.

Rock on, Jeff.

Vah Reh Vah Fries and Chips

Here's a couple video recipes for French fries and potato chips from the folks at Vah Reh Vah...



Much wisdom regarding type of potato, cooking temperatures and other goodies here. Mmmm... fries... and chips...

French Fry Diary 12: Chickie’s & Pete’s

It’s Philadelphia Wings lacrosse season, and that means one thing… well, several things, but only one thing that is relevant to this blog, and that’s Crab Fries!

Now let’s be clear. I have never ever been to any of Chickie’s & Pete’s five area locations in the Delaware Valley, but they do serve their world famous Crab Fries at the Wachovia Center where the Wings play their home games.

The famous Crab Fries are really simplicity itself despite being an addictive taste sensation. They are just pixie crinkle-cuts smothered in old bay seasoning. But then again, if you’ve ever tried to duplicate this miracle at home, you know it’s just not that simple. Perhaps it’s old bay and crack cocaine – they are that damned addictive.

They are best served hot, and taste-wise very hot, and somehow are much better while watching a sporting event. They come in big honking Big Gulp-sized cup, but still once they’re gone you still want more. While I myself am a French fry purist, one of the winning features of the Crab Fries is the two mini-tubs of white cheese that accompany them. This special cheese is reputedly so good that sometimes it’s hijacked for other park foods like hot dogs and pretzels.

Should you not be able to finish your Crab Fries in the course of a four quarter lacrosse game (or any sporting event really), the good news is they heat up real well at home whether you bake ‘em or nuke ‘em, tasty tasty.

Like I said, the best part of any Wachovia trip and a Philadelphia tradition. When you’re talking Philly sports and French fries, you’re talking Chickie’s & Pete’s.




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The Brick of Cheese

This wonder food made from a huge chunk of the favorite fried food cemented together with cheese is courtesy of This Is Why You’re Fat, a website that promotes itself as “where dreams become heart attacks” and presents pictures of outrageous and allegedly bad-for-you foods and food combinations. Like this, the wonderful brick of cheese.

The Cheese Fries Song

From comedian Jeremy LaCorte, a song parody about his wife's pregnancy cravings. Mmmm... fries...


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Fries with Pheromones?

Apparently there might be more than it seems when it comes to English chips being irresistible. They apparently have a sensory array that makes them even more so to folks. Reuters reports that their aroma is a mixture of, believe it or not, "butterscotch, cocoa, onion, cheese and would you believe ...ironing boards."

Check the article out here

French Fry Diary 11: Five Guys

Five Guys Burgers and Fries, wow.

These guys, these ‘five guys,’ are definitely hardcore. They are serious about burgers and fries. If you check their menu you’ll see that’s all they got and in very precise, concise and simple ways. You get four kinds of burgers, and two kinds of fries, drinks and condiments (and maybe a dog or two for the non-conservatives). Keep it simple and it’ll always be good.

The burgers are good, always well done, and always tasty. The patties are all the same and if you get a large, you actually get two patties which is a nice change of pace. But as usual, what we’re here to talk about is the favorite fried food.

Five Guys fries are natural cuts, cut fresh every day from potatoes delivered weekly from different places in potato country. Most of the time – as with anything this depends on who’s working the fry station – they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the prerequisite of all good fries. You’ll need to get two orders if you’re ordering to go or you won’t have any when you get home. These are definitely eat as you drive fries.

The crowning moment for Five Guys in this French fry aficionado’s opinion comes the second after the Styrofoam cup of fries has been placed in your brown paper order bag. The fry cook will take one more metal scoop of fries and drop it right into the bag. Yeah, you heard me, another heaping scoop of fries on top of what you already ordered. Does it get much better than that really?


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