Hawaii, isn't this the US - the land of the fat and the home of the fries?

Well, I'm in Hawaii in August and my greatest two fears were big, fat, obnoxious, small minded Americans and more crucially, not being able to get a decent hot chip! 

Much to my pleasant surprise, I had to retract and reconsider, in a most humbling manner, my media driven narrow minded opinion of Americans. Sure if you go to Burger King or Mickey D's (as they call it here) you'll see fries, you'll probably also see all those fat people too. But everyone we spoke to was polite, more worldly than I had imagined, educated, interesting, kind and not that fat at all. In fact, obesity seemed rare in this tropical isle, most were probably fitter than I. But more importantly, they do a great chip !

At steakhouses and as bar snacks we discovered some old school, unpeeled, big chunky chips ! Traditional and tasty, long and large cut, fried skins holding fast to long chunky chips cooked in clean oil. I was most pleasantly surprised, particularly that the menus always describe them as 'fries'.

On the first occasion, in anticipation of disappointment and in desperation I ordered a side of those 'fries'. Desperate for a taste of any oily potato stick, no matter how it was presented, I waited in morose expectation of a horrible salty plate of french fries.

As we quietly discussed how all these Americans are nice, not fat and mostly well educated or at least more knowledgeable about affairs than I had anticipated the 'fries' arrived. Hooray ! Double Hooray ! Big, thick cut old school chips, and pretty damn tasty too boot, y'all. Subsequent orders of 'fries' came as a pleasant chippy surprise. I had to humbly retract and revise all my preconceptions about the US, it's inhabitants and it's chips !. I would willingly go back to Hawaii any day, though not just for the chips of course :-)