Friendship Fries

I had a friend who lived up the road a ways. There was a highway between us or it would have been a nice walk. I would head to her house on sunny days and stand in her kitchen while she peeled potatoes and cut them in fat sticks. She left them in the sink in a colander for an hour while we chatted and drank tea, then she dropped them in a pan of oil that bubbled around them until they turned golden.

She eschewed ketchup, calling it "barbarian food," and she swore by some type of salt that was not salt. I can never remember the name of it, but it did the trick without raising her blood pressure.

We sat at a table on her covered porch at ate the fries one by one from a shared dish. It was a type of utopia. There were never mosquitos or flies and there was always plenty of sugar in the tea. The days were warm, the sun was bright, the birds sang and we feasted heartily on starches.

I never make my own french fries. I buy them in freezer bags at the grocery store and plunk them into my deep fryer for five minutes. They don't taste as good. I can't figure out if it's the friendship that's missing or it's an issues of freshness that detracts from their flavor. By rights any fried food should taste divine.

Perhaps today is the day I dive deep into nostalgia. Peel potatoes over the sink and divide each whole into slices. Brew the tea and sit at a window to dine mosquito free with a joyful view of history.

images via pixabay.com