Sarah’s Irish Pub in Hampton, Va. Uses 30 Plus Years of Experience to Prepare The Best Tasting French Fries in Town

French fries appear to be an easy item to prepare and cook, right? Then why are there so many bad ones served? To find out to prepare and cook good fries, the Old Cobbler turned to the folks at Sarah’s Irish Pub in the Phoebus section of Hampton, Virginia.

This family run business⎯mother and daughter for thirty plus years⎯has been converting an average of 400 plus pounds of fresh potatoes a week into French fries. That is a lot of practice and experience. The result is the best tasting French fries this writer has ever eaten.

In answer to the question regarding how it’s done, Trish Profer, the current owner of Sarah’s, said it starts with the right type of potato. After it is properly prepared, it is cooked twice, and then promptly served after the second cooking.

The type of potato (not a russet for the record), the blend of cooking oils, the temperature and length of time for each step in the cooking process, as well as how the potatoes are handled between the two trips into the hot oil, are all hard earned, closely guarded secrets.

Outside research turned up this explanation of the two-step cooking process. Alton Brown, host of “Good Eats” on the Food Channel, says⎯after all the science and physics are removed⎯that the goal of the first step, called blanching, is to cook the potato just until it becomes “limp and floppy, but not greasy.”

The second step, Brown explains, does two things. It makes the water inside the potato boil, turn to steam, and push out from the inside of the potato, preventing the cooking oil from entering. This step also gives the fry its golden, crispy exterior.

Brown emphasizes that the proper temperatures and times are critical if the overall goal of the cooking steps is reached. This goal is to produce a finished product with a minimum of oil being absorbed.

Culinary experts agree that when the cooking is done at the correct temperature for the proper length of time, the oil absorption is so low that deep fat frying is considered a dry cooking process.

So what can a customer expect to be served when ordering French fires at Sarah’s Irish Pub? They will experience a fry that scores top marks in what the food critics call the basic tests: aroma, appearance, texture, and taste.

The aroma is that of freshly cooked potatoes, not an ambiguous smell that leaves the customer wondering what other foods might have been cooked in the same oil.

The appearance is a golden brown, matching the hue of the bun or toasted bread when the fries are served with a burger or sandwich. The color is even, an indication that the fries were cooked in a small quantity that allowed each strip of potato to fully interact with the hot oil.

Texture is a combination of the thin, crispy exterior that covers each fry, plus the slightly crispier texture of the skins, which are not removed during preparation. This combination gives a hint of crunchiness when eaten.

It all comes together in the final test, taste. The texture, the flavoring from the oil, and properly cooked strips of potato deliver to the palate the ultimate in eating French fries that have been prepared and cooked the proper way.

There is one humorous footnote. Some first-time customers, accustomed to the ash blonde appearance of most French fries, take one look at a serving of the fries at Sarah’s, and think they are burned. That idea always disappears with the first bite.

Unusual formation in Winter Sky Sparks Debate Among Neighborhood "Experts"

Those who looked to the skies along the Mid-Atlantic coast a few minutes before sunset on December 30 saw a most impressive sight. The pictures below were taken in Hampton, Virginia, looking southward across the Hampton Roads harbor towards Norfolk.

There is a debate among neighborhood “experts” as to whether it is a jet contrail or an unusual cloud formation. Both sides have pointed to details in the photos below to make their arguments.

The argument for jet contrail is based on the formation’s long, tapered, and conical appearing shape. Its “tail” has the feathered appearance, as does a jet contrail as the vapor dissipates.

Cloud advocates point to the height of what is obviously a jet contrail, to the left of the formation and visible in the second photo below. This is typical of a common sight in the late afternoon hours as planes travel down the eastern coast from airports in the Northeast.

Those voting cloud point to the shadow on the second layer above the formation. The other side suggests it is not a shadow, but rather a path cut through the thin cloud layer by an airplane.

Neither side has an explanation to what appears to be movement by the formation in a direction different from the thin cloud layer. Approximately five to eight minutes elapsed between the first and third photo.

Regardless of its origin, it was a most intriguing sight, one that livened up the end of a winter day for those who saw it.

Unexplainable Outbursts of Crying Is Unsettling Among the General Pubic When the Tears are Shed by Men

When a dear sweet lady named Kaye Barley down in Boone, N. C., asked me to ante up my two cents in a discussion about “what makes me cry,” my immediate reaction was, “No way.”

But then I swapped E-mails with the lady. She included a comment that made me start thinking⎯not about what makes me cry these days, but how the public reacts differently to public displays of tears from men vs. women.

It’s a subject that does not get a lot of discussion for what I think is one simple reason. We live in a culture with two standards. It’s okay for women to cry in public. But men simply do not unless the reason is obvious to all who see the outburst.

I’ve seen many women crying in public over the years. And I’ve never seen a reaction to such that could be called anything but solicitous, or consoling, or compassionate.

That men draw a different reaction became obvious to me 27 months ago. My wife of 41 plus years was killed in a vehicle crash. Afterwards, I started having uncontrollable outbursts of tears in public places.

At times, I knew the cause⎯a thought, or something I saw, or heard, or even smelled. At other times, the trigger did not register on the conscious level. I’d going along, everything feeling normal, when the tears would start.

But this is not about my wife being killed. It’s not about my uncontrollable outbursts of tears in public. It’s about how those around me reacted when such an event occurred.

The first time it happened, I was in a local drugstore, standing in front of the greeting cards. Since my mother’s and my wife’s birthdays were only four days apart, I’d bought two cards for 40 years.

I first picked out a card for my mother, as I’d always done. I then, without thinking, turned to look at the cards filed under “wife.” Reality hit and the tears started flowing.

A lady standing beside me, looked at me, rushed away down the aisle and disappeared. Moments later, I saw her, obviously bending over, and peeking around the corner of the display shelving, looking in my direction.

Another occurrence was in a local mall. I was walking down its main corridor when the tears started for some unknown reason. I stopped, and before I moved again, I had a young looking, male rent-a-cop in my face.

Standing almost nose-to-nose, he said, “ Hey, mister. What’s your problem?” His tone of voice did nothing to help the problem. I turned and walked way. Fortunately for both of us, he didn’t follow me.

Then there was the lady in the neighborhood department store with the small child. Again, I’ve no idea what triggered the tears as I was headed to the men’s clothing section.

The lady, who was walking toward me, grabbed the child by an arm and scurried past me. When I turned around, she was looking over her shoulder at me as she all but dragged the child along.

There have been other such moments, but these make my point. The public does not know how to deal with a man who is crying in pubic for no obvious reason. It’s the reality of the society we have created.

Sandi Ault’s 3rd Novel, WILD SORROW Gives Insight into Native Animals: Expands The Native American View

Voices far more knowledgeable than The Old Cobbler’s have made it clear where Sandi Ault, with only two books published, stands among today’s mystery authors. Her record of awards, sales, and other achievements speaks for itself.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading the ARC for WILD SORROW, which will be released March 3 by Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin. This third offering in her Wild Series is a certainty to achieve the same success.

WILD SORROW opens with a harrowing scene. Jamaica Wild, on horseback, and accompanied by her young wolf companion, named Mountain, is tracking a wounded mountain lion far from the comfort of civilization when caught in a blizzard.

They are forced to take shelter in an abandoned Indian school. During the night, their feeling of unease is heightened when they discover the body of a dead woman, followed by the brief appearance of the wounded mountain lion.

Out of this experience come three elements⎯the Indian school, mountain lions and the relationship between human and wolf⎯that form a compelling backdrop in the story of the successful hunt for the killer of the dead woman at the school.

Jamaica, as a BLM agent, sees and tries to come to terms with the dichotomy between mountain lions right to freely exist and the human demands of ranching and recreation.

She is appalled by the stories she hears about how children were treated at the Indian school, and by the permanent scars she sees on those who survived the ordeal. Hundreds of children died and were buried at the school.

Sandi Ault does not use the word atrocities to describe conditions at the school. The cruel and inhuman treatment, the physical, mental, and sexual abuse the students were forced to endure speak for themselves.

In depth of depravation, if not in scope, the government’s treatment of these students ranks as one of the world’s worst atrocities. And they were children. They were defenseless.

Sandi also gives us a view into the reality of having a wolf as a companion. It’s a micro view of mankind’s plight as well as the wolf’s. Both are forced to give up a degree of freedom for the greater goal of safety.

The Old Cobbler was reminded of two things after reading WILD SORROW. The first is a comment Upton Sinclair made about his novel THE JUNGLE.

He said, “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Sandi Ault aims for both the heart and the stomach. And she nails both. Neither blow is an accident. She writes with compassion, but does not write cozies.

The last though deals with Sandi Ault as a voice for Native Americans. Tony Hillerman wrote his first novel, THE BLESSING WAY, in 1970. Over the next 38 years, he wrote seventeen more novels.

These established him as the premier voice for Native Americans among American writers. Sandi Ault has written three novels over the past three years. She is already being compared to Hillerman.