Fry Fest

We had a deep frying family feeding frenzy last night. We've been doing the deep fried Turkey at Thanksgiving for a few years but last night we finally entered the wonderful world of deep fried Twinkies, Snickers, Oreos and more. Mmmm.... deep fried crap.
My brother-in-law Mike got a deep fryer for Christmas so we didn't need to do this outside with our big turkey fryer. After an extensive search for crap-frying recipes online we chose the very simple and tasty standard pancake mix to use as batter. We armed ourselves with 10 frozen Twinkies, a small package of Oreo Cookies and an assortment of frozen fun size candy bars including Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy, Twix and Kit Kats. Woops, I'm drooling again.
Anyway, once the oil was up to 375 degrees, we started dipping the candy in batter and then tossing it into the boiling oil. The Snickers bars were by far the best, a warm golden brown crust, melting chocolate and solid peanut core. Heaven. Twix also were quite tasty, the cookie middle became a nice pastry. Almond Joys fell apart and looked like almond roadkill, Milky Ways were just OK and I don't think I heard a Kit Kat verdict from anyone. The deep fried Oreos looked like fried mushrooms and took some experimenting to get the perfect timing to make them just right - the cookies and frosting becoming one mysterious entity. But after coming down from my sugar high, I don't recall what that perfect timing was. For dessert we attacked the Twinkies, first they were rolled in flour then dipped in the batter and finally sacrificed to the deep fat volcano. They were awesome. I don't even remember particularly liking Twinkies at any point in my life and it must be 20 years since I've had one. But they kicked my mouth's ass! Soooo good. And they got even better. Instead of eating them fresh from the fryer, all hot and oily, a few survived until the end of the night. These ones were magical. The creamy filling was gone. Completely vanished and absorbed into the cake. It just melted in my mouth. Next experiment will be to inject that hollow core with some hot fudge or something sick. Can't wait.

The Patriots Are Coming!

The New England Patriots are peaking just at the right time once again and while thoughts of making it to a third consecutive Super Bowl seemed foolish a few weeks ago -- nothing this team does should surprise anyone. The 28 - 0 thrashing they placed on the Bucs on Saturday was easily their best game of the year and the most fun at Gillette Stadium this season since opening night. Unless you're a Tampa Bay fan. Can't wait for our second crack at the Colts and to see Manning make all his whinny baby faces again. Only bummer is they've already blown the undefeated season, I was pulling for Indy having a perfect regular season and being tossed out in their first playoff game.

Kong is King

Saw the new "King Kong" last week on opening night and was very pleased to find all the critical raves are warranted. I loved it. It's what every movie should be - thrilling, gripping, awe inspiring, while also funny, tender and heartbreaking. The original 1933 version is one of my all time favorite films, I had old Kong posters growing up and even liked the 1976 remake when it came out. Peter Jackson's update is over three hours long, and some reviews complain about the pace of the first hour, but once we get to Skull Island it kicks into high gear and the movie didn't feel long to me at all. It features some of the same classic scenes and even a few lines of dialogue from the original and has more amazing dinosaur action than Jurassic Park. Even knowing exactly how Kong will end, I was still cheering every time he swatted down a plane at the Empire State building and was still chocked-up and upset when his end comes. Hope Jackson takes on "King Kong vs Godzilla" or "War of The Gargantuans" next.