King Krinkz

One fast food chain won't even make you get in the car to enjoy fried fare.

Burger King announced Tuesday that it is teaming up with ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston to launch a line of microwaveable Burger King-branded crinkle-cut french fries nationwide this fall. It seems now, you can "have it your way" in the comfort of your own home.

Burger King's microwaveable seasoned crinkle-cut fries, dubbed "King Krinkz" will be the first product in the line to hit stores, including Wal-Mart, in early September. King Kolossalz extra-large crinkle-cut fries and King Wedgez seasoned potato wedges will be released shortly after the King Krinkz hit stores.

Oven-roasted fries. Photo: Gudlyf, Flickr.

And by "home" fries, we don't mean chunks of potatoes fried in butter on the stove top (though those do sound delicious). No, we mean slim, julienned slices of the root vegetable roasted in a home cook's oven.

These slivers of salty heaven are from Flickr user Gudlyf, who used three large Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced with a mandoline, tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with the simple but always satisfying combination of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And, wrote Gudly, they are "as crunchy -- sometimes crunchier -- than the deep-fried versions at your local watering hole."

Pass a bit of ketchup and we would gladly trade a serving of soggy restaurant fries for this tray of golden goodness, stretching as far as the eye can see.

[Via Flickr]

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Long and crisp french fries just ask for creative seasoning to stick to the shiny remnants of oil. That seasoning can be almost anything -- potatoes are one of those perfect blank-canvas foods that can be amped up by a myriad of ingredients.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to get the wonderful bite of wasabi on each fry. With many powders, a nice sprinkle will give you the flavor your looking for, but it doesn't really pop until you mix it up into that nice green ball of paste. But there are ways to get the wasabi to spice up your fries -- it's just not really on the fries itself.

A nice helping of salt and wasabi (or wasabi salt) is a good start on the fries, to get that hint of flavor. Salt is always a necessity, and with the wasabi, you're a small step in the right direction. But the easiest way to add wasabi is in your condiments. The paste can be mixed into ketchup if you like the red stuff, or into mayonnaise if you prefer the white stuff. Or, go wild and mix them both together.

That way, you get the flavor of the fry, the kick of the salt, and the wonderful punch of wasabi without over-coating your potatoes in the green stuff.

From my great-grandmother (called MaMa by her descendants), an inimitable Southern cook and hostess, I inherited a wooden spoon and a set of Chantilly silver that she purchased for herself from wages earned on the Singer Sewing Machine sales floor. Recently, I found out that another piece of MaMa's kitchen is still in the family: her West Bend Deep Fryer, which she purchased in the mid-1970s and passed along to my mother when my parents bought their first beach condo.

As an over-active child, I paid no attention to the equipment my parents used to fry the bream and bass that my brother and I caught in a lake near our condo. Fast forward two decades, during which my family indulged in fried foods less and less. The fryer had fallen into disuse until a few weeks ago, when I decided to try my hand at homemade French fries to accompany some rib-eyes that my cousin sent for Christmas. I was spending a week with my family at our current condo on the Florida panhandle, and my mother mentioned that I could use the old deep fryer.

Heirloom silver and an old wooden spoon are one thing, but antique appliances? Between the fryer's advanced age and my complete inexperience with fries, I was apprehensive to say the least. Find a picture of the results after the jump.

Before I get into this post, I want to readily admit that I am not the target audience for this particular gadget. While I do own a car (a green 16-year-old Subaru Legacy Wagon that I adore), I live a block and a half from my office and so don't need a vehicle to cover that distance (I drive once or twice a week and should really sell it, but I'm attached). Back in the days when I did drive more frequently, my car was so old that it didn't have integrated cup holders (although my dad did bolt a makeshift one to my dashboard). Add on to that the fact that I rarely eat fast food, and you result with a girl who has no working need for a French Fry holder that fits into a cup holder.

However, I can see how there are people who might just find this product appealing. To you I say, if you think you need this "accessory" you eat far too many French fries. If you choose to eat fries while driving, you should accept that your fingers are going to get greasy and that you're your going to have an oil-spotted paper bag in your lap.

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It's official. The Worst Food in America is not the Pizza-Crepe-Taco-Pancake-Chili Bag that was famous for about 30 seconds a couple of years ago. First of all, the PCTPCB doesn't actually exist, and second of all, the Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing from Outback Steakhouse, which does exist, has made its way to the top -- er bottom, as it were -- of Men's Health's list of the 20 Worst Foods in America.

The foods were chosen based on sheer caloric impact alone, because in the end, it all comes down to the number of calories we consume and burn. However, some "allowances" were made for excessive carbohydrates and fat, added sugars, trans fats, and sodium. After all their calculations, the Aussie Cheese Fries weigh in at 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Even if you do the polite thing and share the order with three other people, your starter alone will already put you over a dinner's worth of calories before the server even brings your entree to the table.

So I guess that means, order the Aussie Fries and a glass of water for dinner, right?

Believe it or not, 15-year old Faye Campbell of Great Britain has eaten nothing but french fries ("chips" to the Brits) for the past ten years.

According to an article in the Daily Mail, Campbell suffers from a "bizarre physical condition which made her ill every time she tried anything other than chips."

This "bizarre" condition? Gastrooesophageal reflux...commonly known as heartburn.

For whatever reason, it took the girl's doctors way too long to realize the cause, and in the meantime, pardon me for being slightly insensitive, but she's been milking it for all it's worth.

I don't doubt that salty potatoes are easier to digest than, say, acidic fruits or juices. But how I'm impressed with how long this girl has convinced her parents to let her eat fries at every meal - every kid should be so lucky! And conveniently, french fries go down easier than say, Brussels sprouts or bananas...

The good news? To her parents' delight, Campbell has now moved onto foods other than french fries. Her diet now also consists of burgers, noodles, Chinese takeout, and waffles. (Don't you wish you had this girl's parents when you were 15?)

Of course, a lot of people would say "just avoid fast food altogether!" But sometimes you just need a Wendy's double cheeseburger and fries.

The folks over at A Calorie Counter have looked at the nutritional info for all of the fast food outlets (McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, A&W, Arby's, Hardee's, In-N-Out Burger, Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Sonic, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's, White Castle, Popeyes, Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and Dairy Queen) and have compiled a list of the 88 worst foods you can buy, in terms of the amount of trans fats. After the jump, the 10 worst. The link above gives you the whole list.

How did I miss this holiday all the way until September 20th?! Oh well, better late than never.

Potatoes are one of the great things on Earth, and that includes television, blue jeans, and Jessica Alba. You can do so many things with them: baked potatoes, potato chips, french fries, mashed potatoes, potato salad. The list is endless. And they're pretty healthy too.

Here are 230 recipes for potato salad, 177 recipes for mashed potatoes, two recipes for potato chips, and one recipe for the perfect baked potato. Enjoy!

Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries, a D.C.-based chain that has garnered rave reviews up and down the East Coast recently entered the New York metro area. I visited their Queens location and, despite Five Guy's obsession with cooking all their meat well done, I found the burger quite good.

The Guys recently opened a shop in Hackensack, N.J. Now here's where it starts to get interesting. Überblogger Jason Perlow reports that Burger Boys, an independent joint, has also set up shop in nearby Fairview. They copied Five Guys' menu format. No big deal, right? But that's just the tip of intellectual property rights infringement iceberg. Rather than give these con artists any free advertising, I chose a pic of the Five Guys ordering area from Perlow's site. The shots he took of Burger Boys are pretty shocking.

How shocking you ask? Let's put it this way. Burger Boys didn't stop at copying the Five Guys' menu. They also lovingly reproduced the Guys' interior design, presentation of the food in brown paper bags and its insistence on cooking everything well done. I almost forgot, the Boys dress their staff in red T-shirts and hats, just like the Guys. I'd love to think that this is merely some confluence of East Coast burger synergy, but clearly it's a simple case of out-and-out theft of the Five Guys' concept.

That's according to preschoolers, anyway.

A study done by a researcher at Stanford University has concluded that kids think that anything that McDonald's does taste better than anyone else. And not just the burgers and fries. This also extends to the milk, carrots, and apple juice! As long as it has a McDonald's logo, it's better. To quote Diane Levin, a childhood development specialist: "You see a McDonald's logo and kids start salivating."

I haven't been to McDonald's in quite some time, but today might be the perfect day to stop by.

It's National French Fries Day. It doesn't sound like the healthiest of food holidays, but it's Friday (and Friday the 13th!) so maybe you can splurge diet-wise today.

Here's a basic recipe for french fries, and here's one for Cajun French Fries. This is a recipe for healthier Oven Baked Fries, and here's one for Japanese Frites. Of course, you could just go to McDonald's like I'm going to do. They still have the best fast food fries, right? Like I said, I haven't been in a really long time.

Ah, memories of peeling potatoes.

Two memories come to mind: the endless hours of peeling and chopping potatoes at my job at a breakfast/lunch place. I must have cut 10 tons of potatoes over those years. The other memory is my mother peeling potatoes on holidays. She would pull the peeler towards her, instead of away like you're supposed to, but she never cut herself.

I thought of those times when looking at this: Tater Mitts (audio/video will start when you click). They're glove with a rough edge that peel potatoes easily. You just rub the potatoes with your gloves under running water and it takes the skin off. Extra bonus: your hands will look like an alien from Star Trek.

I know some people love it and others think it sounds pretty horrible, but personally I've always been a big fan of regular Poutine - crispy french fries smothered in gravy with cheese curds throughout. But this? Well, I have no idea what to even categorize this under exactly - food porn, perhaps? Maybe food oddities? Regardless, this is definitely something that you just don't see everyday.

Rob at Hungry In Hogtown has created his own version of Foie Gras Poutine with Horse Fat Fries, based on a recipe from Montreal-based restaurant Au Pied de Cochon, which features a veal demi-glace, artisanal sheep's milk cheese for his fresh cheese curds, seared foie gras, and his (soon to be infamous?) horse fat fries. Rich and decadent? Definitely. Controversial? Absolutely. But it certainly ranks as the most unique recipe I have seen on the web all week. Maybe even all month.