We all screamed

Holy fucking sweet ass intro sequence! Featuring fucking Starship! Kudos Amy, kudos. Let'em say we're crazy --- I don't care about that. I feel like we're legit now, that this has permanence, traction, everything a lauded and award-winning blogger would need. Put your arms around me, baby, don't ever look back.

And beyond that, I'd like to say we're doing something no other deep frying vlogger is doing right now. And that's pushing the envelope. Yeah, I just started a sentence with a conjunction, what're you going to do about it? We deep fried Ice(d) Cream, I think this is the right time to say what what's been kicking around here for awhile behind the scenes at K&A Studios: we're bigger than Jesus. Any two-bit conjurer can take a stroll on a sand bar; deep frying a frozen food is sublime.*

Anyway, despite what the intro claims, I'm not sure this entry is "starring" anybody, least of all the pile of used tissues and empty Sudafed boxes that substituted in for Marina this week. In case anyone needs to know what our ethos is, it can be summed up by not having an ice cream scoop. his isn't the sort of show where the right utensil magically appears in the hands (or first basemans mitts as it were) of the hostess, or the sort of show where we get things right the first time. But damnit we fried haagen dazs.

*Physics joke!

Corn Dogs

Although we didn't take any video at the time, the Fabio Party was not with out deep fried delights. Kurt whipped up a few batches of heavenly gluten-free frickles and corn dogs. Fortunately there were some ingredients leftover so we were able to have a corn dog reprise. We did, however, make the mistake of watching various deep fry television programming during the taping of this episode. Oil overkill, indeed. Don't try it at home. Special thanks to our friends (other) Amy, Lena, the good residents of Clifton, NJ (a scant 10 miles east of NYC according to the Travel Channel), and of course "the burgers cum in my mouth" guy.

Fabio's Birthday!

I know it's been a while since we all gathered together in honor of the big man's birthday, so let this be a winsome look back on just a small sliver of the awesomeness of the Fabio Party '09, which began with a twig-infested wig, ended with a couple of cops answering a "noise complaint" (no, I didn't hire any strippers this time), and had some beefcake and a tragic scratched cornea somewhere in the middle. Enjoy the memories!

All photos courtesy of Lauren -- thanks, lady!

'Tis the Season for Man Boobs

Please indulge me as I veer briefly off the topic of deep frying in order to share with you the following video. With the Fabio party right around the corner, I thought I would take advantage of our blog forum to share in advance the vaunted "Fabio movie" also known as "A Time for Romance." I hope this inspires you to costume yourself in a romantically appropriate fashion for the party, invites to which are on the way. I hope to see you there, but until then feast your eyes on the mini-movie.

My sincere apologies for the teeny weeny screen size. Technical difficulties necessitated taping the movie off my old school TV/VCR combo and besides, if you don't mind my saying, you should know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth...

Superbowl Leftovers

Kurt's Superbowl party yielded such a surplus of food that his guests, so full of homemade empanadas and wings -- served in copious quantities despite warnings from Stephen Colbert -- were unable to consume it all. Luckily, our dear friend Lena was available to emerge from the comfort of her Snuggie(TM) and help us out in tackling the leftover jalapeno poppers, goat cheese balls, and ravioli.

The ravioli are easy enough; simply coat in egg, roll in breadcrumbs, and place in basket. For the jalapeno poppers, we halved and seeded the peppers, then filled them with a mixture of cream cheese and monterrey jack, then egged and breaded them. Finally, the goat cheese balls are simply egged and breadcrumbed as well, but with panko (japanese breadcrumbs). They're all fried together at 350, but the ravioli are going to cook first, and they float so make sure you turn them manually after about 30 seconds. What could be easier.

Anyone with a penchant for inscrutable After School Specials will be tickled by clips of Ace Hits the Big Time (1985). This classic tale of a boy with a stye, whose therapeutic eye patch looks so tough that it gets him tapped by the Purple Falcons who are in a heated gang war with the rival Piranhas, and subsequently by a big-time movie director, and his unwavering conviction that cake triumphs over hate.

Finally, to answer Kurt's question about the career trajectory of Horace "Ace" Hobart portrayer Rob Stone...
It turns out his superbly nuanced interpretation of the role of Ace landed him a sweet spot on the cast of the beloved series Mr. Belvedere (1985-90). Looks like that fictional talent scout in Ace spotted a very real rising star!

Rice Balls

Well I'd like to be the first to challenge my own proclamation that the holiday episode was a "rollicking success," both on grammatical and factual grounds. Anyway onto the episode, the rice balls came out really, really well, and it seems like a nice way to take some leftovers that are probably too meager to use otherwise, and resuscitate them into a late-night snack. Amy dined on some leftover vegetable curry that I had hanging around in the fridge, and I took some hoisin sauce, soy sauce, onions, and frozen shrimp, and sauteed it up rather quickly. The point is though, that you could really put anything in there (ground beef? Chicken? Chocolate???) and it'll turn out nicely.

As for the unnecessary apology at the beginning of the video, we know that there was nobody calling us out on the state of our oil, but it was pretty reprehensible. We have since found some religion on the subject and would like to proffer the following websites as sources for good deep fryer (and oil) maintenance:

American Heart Association Guide on Deep Frying

Easy and Informative Best Practices from some website named "stop the clog."

I plan on posting one (or a series) of entries regarding deep-fryer maintenance, but for now, here's a quick link on how to properly dispose of your used oil. This applies not only to deep frying, but any kind of oil used in cooking.

I would also like to take a moment to correct myself and state that the solution should not have a 90%/1% ratio. These are the hazards of the semi-live vlogosphere. And I'll take a second here to apologize to Sir Isaac Newton for uttering the phrase "the Law of Continuity of Matter."

The key for these rice balls was, as usual, temperature. The rice was too cold and dry to work into a ball at first, but the more we worked with it, getting the heat from our hands into the mixture, the more cohesive and moldable it was.

Anyway, as you can tell, Amy and I are not huge fans of Aida and her Tech whelp Noah. To date, no response has come to our email, but we’ll keep you, our faithful viewers, posted.

To back up our libelous rhetoric, here’s her wikipedia page, which details her background, which is decidedly light on actual cooking experience. And even though she could most likely cook circles around Amy and myself (though the straight-faced inclusion of "scrambled eggs" on her show might suggest otherwise), the premise of her show is still ridiculous. To have viewers ask questions and have them answered is one thing; to have them utilize the internet, in some cases even taking the time to send videos(!!!) to ask questions that they could just fucking google is patently absurd. It's as if you required your viewers to write their questions in the margins of the encyclopaedia page on which the information is found, and then mail it to you. And obviously having a "tech guru" on board whose job it is to simply check email is laughable.

Kurt + Amy's Very Special Holiday Deep Fry Christmas Special

Nothing says Christmas quite like warm, homemade cookies fresh out of the... deep fryer? Join us on our bold journey to create a deep-fried Christmas cookie. Will we revolutionize the world of holiday baking? Or fall face first in a dough of our own making? There's only one way to find out. Special guest stars Marina and Charlie Brown lend a hand!