I have learned my lesson, Alton Brown. If I need to whip up some succluent treat, but I'm not sound in my techincal skills, all I need to do is hit the Food channel's webpage and type in "Food dish I want to make + Alton Brown" and I'm good to go. You are never wrong.

This was never more in evidence than this weekend, when I decided to make your Chips and Fish fry. Now, okay, maybe the potatoes were a touch on the soggy side, but that? That was all me. I settled for vegitable oil when I should have used sunflower oil. And the pot I was using wasn't a totally awesome, three-inched dutch oven jobbie that could take heat and hold it in like an inversion layer over Phoenix. My bad, and oooooooh, belive me. I have learned my lesson.

But we have to get back to the fish, Alton. The fish was amazing.

I'm what you call a bad frier. I can do a decent pan fry, or shooka up a mess of taquitos, but the breaded, deep-fat division has always been out of reach of my comfort zone. My chile rellenos always turn into gloppy, melty messes. My one attempt at fried chicken ended with a panicked run to KFC. And we're still not talking about the deep fried Oreo debacle of last fall. See me? Not talking about it.

I'm definitely more of a roast girl.

So please take that to account when I tell you how brilliant your instructions were. Or as I'd write it in a quasi-mathematical equation: Cold fish dredged through corn starch followed by a dunking in chilled beer batter = Awesome. The batter held on beautifully. It clung to the fish through the first contact with hot oil. It puffed up into a golden, crunch shell. It looked all tasty and deep-fried.

Check that. It was tasty and deep-fried. Everyone at the table mawed through the pile of fried fish, drank Guinness and were generally cheerful, chatty (but not too chatty) people. Another week, another unmitigated distaster avoided.

Thank you, Alton. I couldn't have pulled it off without your instruction, patience and wacky aloha shirts.

Yours very sincerely,
Sarah H. Wolf