Fatless

It is Number Two Daughter’s birthday tomorrow.

I am not exactly sure how old she will be, she is past thirty which was when I lost count, and I do not find it easy to work out somebody’s age from their date of birth, I am never sure if you have to include a year of nothing. I have been working on the assumption that she is thirty three, but I might be invoking the wrath of all daughters for saying so if it is either thirty two or thirty four.

I would just like to add that this is not personal to Number Two Daughter. I once had a considerable surprise one year on discovering that I was forty seven. I had truly, genuinely thought that I had been that the year before, and to discover that I had skipped forty six  and was embarking on forty seven for the second time was really quite an astonishment.

I found out because my mother told me, so perhaps I ought to know about Number Two Daughter.

Anyway I have had her for a jolly long time. Much longer than I didn’t have her, in fact.

It is jolly nice to have daughters.

Anyway, she telephoned today. This alarmed me for a moment in case Canada was a day in front of us and I had neglected to send her birthday wishes, but it was all right because they are a day behind after all.

She had telephoned to tell me that what she wanted for her birthday was for me to purchase an air fryer for ourselves.

It took me a while before I grasped what she was trying to say.

She and Mrs. Number Two Daughter have got an air fryer which they got for Christmas. Until this point I had never even heard of such an innovation, but it turns out that what it does is deep fries things without the need to add any oil. Well, hardly any oil. A basket full of chips will require a small spoonful of oil.

I do not deep fry anything, ever, because I loathe the smell, and the horrible sticky grease that steams out of the pan like ectoplasm and crawls stickily all over your cupboards and shelves where it will remain for years and years until eventually you demolish the kitchen. Even then it will still stick to your crowbar.

An air fryer does not do this.

Number Two Daughter has been speaking with wonder and admiration about their air fryer. They cooked coconut prawns in it the other night.

I like the sound of deep-fried coconut prawns, especially if they have hardly any oil and don’t trash your kitchen or make you fat.

I like the sound of all sorts of deep-fried things.

Number Two Daughter says that their newly deep-fried-without-oil cooking is utterly magnificent, and of course I instantly longed for an air fryer.

I suggested it to Mark, who also likes eating, and we agreed that when we next had a surplus of cash left over from boring responsibilities and school fees we would purchase one.

Number Two Daughter has said that she would like us to do this instead of sending her some birthday cash.

I was very touched indeed, what a wonderfully thoughtful thing to want to do, and although I made a few token reluctant noises, when she said that if we did not buy one for us then she would do it herself, I gave in instantly.

Obviously I spent ages looking on Amazon after that, and have become something of an expert about Teflon baskets and wattage and how many litres the oven holds. I don’t really understand litres because of working things out in pints, but some of them sound impressively large.

Mark said that the only important bit was that it did not open or have the buttons on the top so that it would fit underneath the microwave when finally he gets round to building the shelf for it.

I have attached a picture of the final thrilling purchase.

We are going to be eating coconut prawns and chips in next to no time.

Number Two Daughter says that she will send me the recipe.

We did send her a small birthday cash token as well. I am not quite that ruthless.