Ode to the Fry

My life long weakness has been french fries. I love them. Give me a gallon of Heinz ketchup (I always wondered why anybody else even bothers to make ketchup) and a super sized fries and let me go to town.

As for preference, the thicker the cut the better. Steak fries or country fries are the best. When I was in seventh grade, I'd occasionally walk home from school, about 2 miles, and stop at this dark dingy restaurant/bar and order up a large country fries and a full bottle of ketchup. Man, were those good! Mmmm mmm.

Fast food fries have to give the nod to Wendy's. Ever dip those babies into a Frosty? To die for.

And then, there's the beach. As we pack for our beach trip, my mind wanders to the mecca known as Thrasher's. Thrasher's is an Ocean City, Maryland institution. It's been at the end of the boardwalk forever. Thrasher's fries are fresh cut, about 1/4" sides and maybe 3-4" long. I believe they're fried in vegetable oil until they're crispy brown. It's an unassuming stand right next to some carnival games and the serve fries and Cokes. That's it. (Kinda like the old Saturday Night Live skit about the Cheeburgers and Pepsi's.) I'm not sure when this picture was taken, but on a normal afternoon or evening, the line will stretch out to 100+ hungry beach goers.




You can't see it in the picture, but there is one sign of note on the left wall. In big black letters it says: NO KETCHUP.

What, no ketchup? That's what I said on my first visit when I was about four years old when dad brought me to mecca for the first time.

Nope, the Thrasher's way is to eat them doused in apple cider vinegar. Admittedly, it's an acquired taste, but once you get used it, you learn to enjoy the flavor of the bitter sweet vinegar mixed in with the just-out-of-the-fryer ocean fries. I learned to love them as a kid and now my kids are learning. (No hope for Deb, though, we've always had to have two tubs. One with vinegar, one without.)

I'm preparing myself for our first trip down the boardwalk, probably tomorrow night. As we get to within a block of mecca, and the smell begins to waft over the concrete part of the board walk, what will I do?

Fit Day says one cup of french fries is just 154 calories but Wendy's puts a large fry at 540 calories. I'm sure that a small order of Thrasher's is at least an order and a half of a Wendy's large.

I'm thinking that if we walk the 20 blocks from our hotel to Thrasher's, I'll burn a couple hundred calories on the round trip. (I won't even mention the cost of walking by every crappy t-shirt story along the way and my kids getting a bad case of the I-wanna's.) That doesn't even include all the calorie burning playing in the ocean and in the pool. Logic seems to point to take the plunge.

The problem is the mental part. Over the past 13 months, I've avoided french fries. It was the one item, before South Beach, that I was cutting out. It's not that I've had none in the past year, but maybe just a couple. Certainly no full orders. Certainly none from mecca. So this will be a challenge. I can just about smell them now!

Have a great week all!

L'Chaim!