My New Love

I guess I might as well announce it here as anywhere: I've fallen in love again.  My wife's probably going to be a bit upset over that four letter word but I can't help myself.  You might be thinking I've succumbed to the proverbial mid-life crisis but you'll be wrong as I've fallen in love with a Sunbeam.  To be specific: a Sunbeam Cooker-Fryer Model CF that was made in the USA in 1952. Even today, it's considered by many to be the finest and most heavy duty non-commercial deep fryer/cooker ever produced.  They are now collectors items selling as usable versions for $160 and up all the way to over $285 for one in mint condition.  My darling that I inherited from my late aunt Mae might not be considered cosmetically to be mint but still looks good with no dents and has the original fryer basket with handle, the cooker's lid and power cord.  This deep fryer would make a Fry Daddy leave town under cover of darkness!

I first came across this cooker/fryer in 2002 when doing an inventory of my late Aunt and Uncle's house after their deaths.  I knew about deep frying as any respectable Chinese restaurant and almost every American restaurant has one.  I'd not done any deep frying at home and most of what I knew outside of a restaurant was mostly limited to what my mother might do in her electric skillet while growing up.  I knew of some college friends that owned various versions of a Fry Daddy but I quickly determined that they were good for cooking up a big handful of french fries and not much else.  When I discovered my Sunbeam, I thought it looked pretty old and quaint and relegated it to spending it's remaining years in an under counter cabinet's shelf or so I thought.

About six months ago I thought I might attempt to do a batch of french fries or perhaps some fried chicken in it and brought it out and gave it a decent cleaning.  One thing I noticed was that it was not only a sizeable deep fryer that could hold a gallon of oil but it was also capable of producing things like beef stew, roasts and many other things.  It has a big metal plate on it's front that lists many things that can be cooked in it along with the proper cooking temperature. Unlike many similar appliances, it has a rotary dial where the temperature can be set from a simmer to over 400°F and remains backlit until it achieves the desired temperature.  It has a substantial aluminum cooking body liner that helps it to maintain temperature along with an integral bracket for placing the fryer basket to drain.  In other words, this was a well thought out appliance easily in the class of such things as a KitchenAid stand mixer and it's currently 59 years old!

In the past few weeks I've used it to produce french fries as good any restaurant could and on a whim tonight ran off a batch of fried chicken that not only turned out flavorful but also moist inside without being pressure fried.  Later on tonight I turned out a batch of corn tortilla chips from fresh corn tortillas cut into 1/8ths along with a couple of flour tortilla chimichangas that were also memorable.  I've got a feeling that this love affair is going to last! Stay tuned for pictures of our honeymoon.