Tonight's Supper Theme Was "Things That Make You Fat"

I love to cook. These days though, with my children running amok and destroying my house, I'm often too tired to make anything that takes longer than 15 minutes.

This afternoon I got a sudden craving for the clam cakes my mother-in-law makes occasionally, but didn't feel like driving half an hour to force/blackmail/bribe her into making them for me. I've never needed a deep fryer...when I fry things I normally do it in a deep set pan. But clam cakes definitely require a real deep frying appliance, so I headed over to Walmart and picked one up for $19. Score!

Then I decided that I couldn't just make clam cakes, I needed something to go with it. So I picked up the ingredients to make New England style (aka the best) clam chowder. And then I decided that I needed to serve it in a bread bowl, so I found some small French boules in the bakery.

When my husband came home I was in the kitchen frying up a storm with my new appliance while being abused by stray hot oil splatters. Which made me wonder what you're supposed to do about that. You can't cover the fryer while it's in use, so what do you do? Stand there and take it? You can't step away from it because those suckers brown in seconds and will literally burn black if left in for 5 seconds longer than they need. Next time I deep fry I'll wear some safety gear: goggles, a ski mask, and rubber dishwashing gloves.

The cakes were done way before the chowda, so by the time I had the soup in the bread bowl and ready to go, my husband and I only had enough room in our stomachs to share a bowl. And damn was it good. (Toot toot - that's the sound of my own horn).

I found this fat dancing starfish clam cake. I think it's an omen of what's to come when they're all gone.