Baked French Fries, and my French Fry stories.

I love French Fries, I have my whole life. My love affair with fries goes back to 1962 or 1963. My friend Georgie and I would walk to Grants Store after school and each get a basket of fries and a Vanilla Coke, back when they would put a squirt of Vanilla syrup in the coke. We would sit and eat our fries in the little diner in the store. If George didn't eat her fries fast enough, I would start taking hers. I have been a french fry freak ever since. In 1969 my friends and I were at Mcdonalds at night and it was closing time, our friends worked there. At closing our friends would give us all the left over fries in a very large bag. We would all sit in our friends car and eat them and talk. Well the cops showed up and took us minors to the police station in our town, because it was a minute past 10:00, curfew for us. Our parents had to come and pick us all up. Some of us got in trouble, not me. Come on now, we were just eating French Fries for goodness sakes. My oldest son at one point moved back home for a time and he said one day while I was making french fries, Mom I knew you loved fries, but I did't realize to what extant you loved them. I guess I was eating them often. Now at almost 64 years old, I have slowed down on them, oh I haven't given them up that's for sure. I just try to eat them less often and not as much as I used to. So now sometimes I will bake them. Ok, not as good as fried, I'll give you that. But I still enjoy the baked ones sometimes, and I can still eat more than my share, if Chuck is not fast enough eating his I start eating his too. Gotta have them with Catsup for sure. Although yesterday I had some with my daughter in law Jill, and she ordered them with Aioli sauce and that was delicious. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks with Fries. If you have a French Fry story let me know.

I used very small potatoes this time, because that's all they had in the market.

4 or 5 small potatoes, sliced thin.

I tried this method of putting the sliced potatoes in cold water for about 20 minutes before baking, makes them more crisp. Pat dry.

Place on parchment lined cooking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil and mix with your hands.

Lay them out in a single layer and sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake at 400 degrees, until crisp and golden, for about 35-40 min. in my little oven. Turn them over if needed. You might have to turn your oven down half way through cooking.