Bum Cuisine, Part Deux

And now, back by popular demand, Bum Cuisine, Instalment Deux.

What to do when life gives you yams? Make yam fries.
-Anonymous

A few mornings ago I woke up feeling like shit. Recent visitors had left me not only with some honey and coasters and other things from Syria, but with a nasty cold, and I was camped down in the immunological trenches. I went to the refrigerator feeling hungry. When I saw what was inside, hunger gave way to hunger laced with dismay, which is worse than plain old hunger. All I saw inside were milk, carrots, a few eggs, and a boomerang-shaped yam. I proceeded to the window to contemplate the morning and my options. The day seemed welcoming enough, and the slush and snow left by the recent storm seemed to have evanesced off the steps enough to enable a safe descent. I thought about going down to the store on the road for bread and maybe some oranges. But then I caught sight of a pair of gypsy ragpickers out on a trawl through my hillside neighborhood. I withdrew behind my apartment's purdah to observe them through a crack. They were two women, neither of whom could have been older than 30. But grime and grease and the rags they wore had grizzled them to an indeterminate age that might best be described as 'adult.' One of them carried a baby strapped against her back with a shawl, as African women do. They did not appear to have found much of value on their trawl so far, and I did not want to go out and signal an invitation to beg with my clean clothes and blond hair. No, I could not possibly go down the hill while the ragpickers were working it. Returning to the refrigerator, I decided to convert obstacle to inspiration using the alchemy that has only one name: Bum Cuisine. I would make a yam omelette with a side of yam fries, a la gypsie.

I think the recipe here goes without saying, but I'll set it down anyway, pro forma.

Ingredients:
1 yam
Frying oil
2 eggs
Some of the ultrapasteurized Turkish milk that keeps for a year at room temperature (unopened)
Salt

Preparation time:
20 minutes

Instructions:
1. Wash the yam, then peel
2. Cut the yam in two, then section into strips, as you would for french fries
3. Heat 1 cup of vegetable oil (my brand features a sunflower, but the label translates as 'moon-flower') nearly to smoking
4. As the oil heats, peel and dice a few cloves of garlic
5. Shovel the yam strips into the frying medium, using a spatula to keep the pieces from sticking to one another
6. Two minutes into the frying sequence, remove a few of the fries to be, transferring them to a pan for integration into the omelette to be
7. As the yams continue to fry, sautee the yam strips and the garlic
8. Once the garlic has browned, remove the sautee substrate
9. Whisk two eggs together with a dash of milk in a bowl
10. Add the sautee substrate, pour into pan, and cook over low heat
11. Once the yam fries are adequately brown, remove from oil and salt
12. With a little luck (or practice), the fries and the omelette should be ready at around the same time

Enjoy!

Note: Once the yam fries are done, you can fry the yam peels for a tasty (and above all cheap) afternoon snack!