Lakes vs. Deep Fryer: Game 7

I was recruited by a group of Boston Celtics fans tonight to deep fry some foods for Game 7 of the NBA Finals. The history behind this decision was that in 2008, the Celtics were 4-0 in games where the deep fryer was used to cook up fish sticks, mozzarella sticks, french fries and chicken nuggets. This year, the Celtics were 3-0 in games where the deep fryer was utilized. I wanted to make tonight historic. I went to Whole Foods this afternoon and bought a few pounds of cod, a pound of calamari steaks, shrimp, mushroom bites, jalapeno and cheese poppers, Twinkies, Snickers bars, Oreos and enough ingredients for three different styles of batter. There was a beer batter made with Hair Of The Dog Ruth, a tempura batter made with buttermilk and cayenne pepper, and a cornmeal batter made especially for corn dogs. I went above and beyond the call of duty. In total, I didn’t get to watch a lot of the basketball game, but I cooked a lot of food. Most of it was really well received. In fact, I received a standing ovation after the game for my contributions. That made me feel good. It also made me forget the pain in my hand — I spilled a few ounces of boiling oil on myself at halftime but toughed it out. I don’t think I need to go to the emergency room, but holy shit does it hurt to spill hot oil on yourself. Here are various photos from the night. Enjoy!

Can that dork mix batter or what?

My sweet 1dog (or should I say Corn dog First Sequence)

Prepared calamari steaks (sliced and ready for seasoning/battering) and sweet potato fries.

Deep-fried Double-Stuffed Oreo. These things were a huge success.

My outdoor frying location. It was a pretty sweet setup.
The perfect place to scald your hand on hot oil.

The beer-battered cod went so fast I didn’t even have time to take a good picture of it. I heard it was pretty amazing though. It must have been the Hair Of The Dog Ruth in the batter.

Basketball watching.

They allowed me to escape from my post for a few minutes to watch the game.

Shrimp. Huge miss. Somebody said they tasted “off,” somebody else said the oil
must have gone bad, and a third person said they were perfect.
I threw everything out and decided to change the oil.

Deep-fried Twinkies topped with a touch of confectioner sugar. Maryn added that little bonus. Again, I didn’t get to try these things but I heard they were amazing. Disregard the medical marijuana conveniently placed next to the food. I wasn’t cooking with it.

Those are either the mushroom balls, the boneless chicken wings or the popcorn chickens. They’re all running together in my memory at this point. That was the first food item I was allowed to eat all night. It was okay.

If the previous photo featured the popcorn chicken, those bad boys are the boneless wings.

The pivotal fourth quarter. I was frying up mini bean and cheese burritos most of the time but it wasn’t hard to guage how the team was doing at this point.

Immediately following the end of the game. Most of the people went outside to taunt and threaten some of the locals. Things got dicey for a few seconds when a small crowd of Lakers fans looked like they might storm the property and stab everyone, but in the end it was just a lot of big talk. Oh well. Better luck next year, Boston.