Before sitting down to our crappy reality shows and usual tape cover-folding, we had to have dinner. 
Speaking of staples, potatoes are one of ours (sour cream too!).
Normally, baked potatoes aren’t experi-mental in our home, but I noticed some leftover fresh sage while getting our other usual additions out of the refrigerator and decided to add it to my potato.
My mandoline
I used to work in a little cafe in Pike Place Market called The Crumpet Shop. (If you’re ever there, stop in – they have excellent, inexpensive, healthy, homemade food and they are super friendly.) One of my jobs was to slice cucumbers, which I always did with a tiny, old-fashioned mandoline. While I don’t regularly slice anything anymore, I’ve wanted a mandoline of my own for years.
I finally got one.
The sleet is falling, the roads are icy, our thermostat is at a chilly 70 degrees to keep the electric bill from ballooning, and Brad and I needed some comfort food to keep us warm. So we had chicken nuggets (real ones from Whole Foods) and french fries.
A few years ago, when we realized how horribly fattening most restaurant food is – especially our favorite, chicken nuggets and deep-fried french fries – we thought we could never have french fries again. We found some baked ones in bags at Whole Foods but with the $6 chicken nuggets and a $4 bag of french fries, it was one expensive meal.
I’m cheating a little here again, but this recipe started as an experiment to see if we could make the meal cheaper without making ourselves fatter. It became a fixture, something that I make at least once a week.
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