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.

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.

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.

• What should your last meal of 2006 be? Why, french fries topped with cheese and gravy of course!
• Or maybe you'd like something a little more sophisticated.
• Don't just serve bread tonight, try some popovers.
• Yes, Boston has one of the top caviar producers in the country.
• 5 food critics pick their 5 favorite cookbooks of 2006.
• Spending New Year's Eve in Boston? The Globe has some ideas for First Night dining.
• This week's recipes: Candied Orange Rind, Crown Roast of Pork with Rice Pilaf, Carrot Cake, and Tourtiere.

McDonald's has just announced that they will reduce the amount of salt on their french fries by 50% at stores across the Atlantic in the face of growing concerns about salt consumption from the public. The change will first take effect in Ireland and, since the salt content of fries in the UK as a whole has already been reduced by 24%, it would not take too much to spread the change to the whole area. The fast food chain also plans to eliminate trans fats over the next several weeks.

Apparently, these initiatives are part of a list of "10 commitments" to healthy eating, the environment and other PR-friendly causes that McDonald's is planning to follow to increase consumer confidence in the brand. It must be working, since they have reported an 8.8% increase in European sales in the last month alone. Or, of course, people are just addicted to the burgers.

It sounds horrible - fake fries - because "fake" anything just has a negative connotation. However, in the case of Arizona public schools, which are now faced with strict state laws banning junk foods, educators are getting creative with school lunches. Acknowledging that potatoes are a staple in may children's diets, they have come up with lowfat, non-fried versions of French fries which are baked. The schools are calling them "oven wedges," "oven fries," and "potato sticks."

They aren't really fooling the kids, but the kids don't seem to mind.

I've always thought that, "Do fries come with that shake?", was one of the worst pickup lines ever. Now Wendy's has answered that question. Not only do fries come with the fast-food spot's Frostys, many customers like to dip their fries into the semifrozen treats.

In the runup to launching its new Frosty flavor this week, Wendy's decided to research the phenomenon of Frosty dipping. The company found 194,000 results when it Googled "fries and frosty." Research, conducted this week for Wendy's, shows that 26% of adults 18 or older have dipped French fries into a Frosty, or know someone who has.

When I read this research I thought studying Frosty dipping was a marketing ploy. It is, but it turns out that the practice does exist. Back in February, Delicious Time, posted the accompanying photo. I've never Frosty dipped and can scarcely remember the last time I even had a Frosty. How many you out there have done the dip? And for those of you who have, would you dip with the new vanilla flavor?