Question: When do fried potatoes stop being fried potatoes?

Answer: When they turn into fried mushrooms. Greasy-looking fried mushrooms.

While I scraped the last bit of sleep from my face this morning my lovely wife (she had an earlier start to the scraping process) turned to me and said, “I feel like a bacon and egg breakfast at Williams Pub Cafe. I’ll pay.”

I didn’t argue.

So, with fresh faces where early-this-morning’s used to be, we drove to Wonderland and Southdale and ordered Classics for $4.99 each.

We took coffees and the Number 14 totem (the next couple received totem 92; they were in for a long wait) to a table beside a parking lot window so I could look longingly at a Mini convertible. And we waited with great anticipation.

Our plates arrived fairly quickly and as the server served I noticed an unsavoury pile of fried mushrooms on my plate.

I didn’t say anything.

Must be dust on my glasses from the workshop, I thought. A lot of dust.

I looked at my plate. The fried potatoes looked like greasy fried mushrooms. I poked a few with my fork. They felt very unpotato-like. Like sponge. Like Sponge Bob would feel after pulling a night shift at the Krusty Krab.


[“Can I go home now?”]

Sure, I ate one piece, as a favour to science.

Aack.

I thought, it’s not a potato anymore.

Just when do fried potatoes stop being fried potatoes?

Perhaps after sitting in grease on a hot grill for 6 days and turning into mushrooms.

I bravely asked for a new order after showing how spongy they were to our server, and within minutes a better batch arrived. Not excellent (“Too spicy and greasy,” said my lovely wife), but better.

Score: 4 out of 10, thanks to good coffee.

***

I’m not wild about most restaurant meals. Cooks who screw up fried potatoes are one reason.

However, I do like the looks of the Mini convertible. 9 out of 10! (What’s the gas mileage like on those babies? Better than my Civic?)

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Life in the fast lane shouldn’t come in the can

I’ve got phone calls to make (my mini-protest and upcoming column re Highland Country Club tax deal just got more interesting) so breakfast is nuked tea and a pb and j sandwich. No time for toast.

While putting the pb jar away I spotted the bane of my existence - powdered gravy in a can.


["Things I wouldn't put on my potatoes": photo by GAH]

Though my wife and I are getting older and busier (almost at the same time - it’s eerie), don’t take time to cook meat and potatoes on a regular basis, and eat out more, there are some convenience foods that send a shiver down my spine.

Powdered gravy? I see the “JUST add boiling water!” and immediately imagine the following scene:

Some guy named Biff is sweeping up the floor at a chemical factory and is about to throw a pile of dust and bits into a bin when he stops, scratches his head, and says to his foreman, “What happens if we add water to this crap?”

“It’s BISTO baby, it’s BISTO!”

I’m sticking with margarine for my powdered potatoes. You?

***

Isn’t instant gravy way over the line?

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