Why My Air-Fryer is the Most Used Appliance in the Kitchen

+ my recipe for homemade crispy fries

When I met Michael’s parents for the first time in 1995, I noticed a cart in the kitchen that blocked the oven door from opening. I was perplexed, and asked him how his mother cooked meals. He hadn’t taken notice of this detail, and asked his mother the same question. She said the toaster oven was all she needed. At 21, I wrote this off as someone who cooked out of necessity instead of enjoyment, and that was true to a large degree for his mom.

Thirty years later I now see the flip side as my own cooking habits have changed. My oven still gets quite the workout but I sometimes go days with only using the stovetop. When it comes to weekday meals, be it lunch or dinner, my needs have changed from those of a mama with two kids at home. Isabella has been out of the house for four years now, and Virginia mostly cooks her own meals. It’s a combination of her independent streak but also due to a lot of food sensory issues, something very common for people with autism.

This means most days I’m cooking for one, and that’s where the brilliance of the air fryer comes in handy. For those still uninitiated to air-fryer cooking, it’s essentially a tiny table top convection oven. What makes it different from the convection feature available on most ovens is how convection works when confined to a much smaller space. The food cooks faster, and browns better, therefore creating a crispier exterior compared to using the convection feature in a traditional oven with a much larger interior.

While I agree air-fryer cooking may not be practical for larger families, it shines when cooking for one or even two people. I was talking about this recently at dinner with friends, and the boyfriend said I sounded like an infomercial. I’m fine with that if any air-fryer companies are interested in hiring me. One company, Chefman, did reach out years ago when they saw how passionate I was about my air fryer on Instagram. They’re social media manager asked me to be an ambassador with payment in the form of…an air-fryer. That was a hard pass since I already had one, and also valued my work enough to be compensated with real currency.