Chips!

As long-time readers of this blog know, I missed being able to eat real chips while down in Yeovil. There was nowhere to put a frier, and oven chips are a poor substitute. Even "Home Fries", which are quite nice, are distinctly oven chips, and not at all like real chips.

Sadly, since I moved, my parents have invested in a new frier, on the grounds that the old one broke, and have ended up with a frier that is slightly less effective than thinking warm thoughts in the direction of the chips. So, when I moved back in briefly, the delight of chips was still denied to me.

Fortunately, the story does not end there, for at the weekend I purchased a brand new "3 in 1" frier! My new apartment has a much bigger kitchen, complete with a window I can put right next to a frier, allowing me the use of such an appliance.

Now, the first thing to say about the purchasing experience is that there is a surprisingly small range of friers available, at least in the local Comet store. I had hoped to buy a small frier, capable of doing a small quantity of chips and not much else (and consequently using less energy), but no such luck. Instead, I have had to buy a full-size all-singing all-dancing model.

The second thing to say is that I find the notion of a "3 in 1" frier somewhat amusing. This is an appliance that suspends a basket of food in hot oil. There's nothing fancy about it at all. Claiming it's "3 in 1" is rather disingenuous, even if it does have two different sizes of baskets you can use.

The third thing to say is that when I'm buying a frier with a 2 year guarantee, and given my statuatory rights, I'm probably not going to be interested in your store's special 3 year extended guarantee. Especially when the cost of this guarantee is almost half of the cost of the appliance in the first place - if it breaks in the first few weeks, I'm entitled to a replacement by law. If it goes wrong in the first 2 years, the applicance's guarantee protects me. So, your guarantee is only useful if something goes wrong in year three, and for the money involved I can probably run to the cost of a new frier in that time.

Anyway, yesterday I made use of my new frier for the first time. The upshot: my chips were burnt. It seems the heating element on the appliance is somewhat overzealous, or perhaps it was affected by there being so few chips, but either way, the chips were rather overdone.

Still: real chips!