Saunders Farm: The best fries I'll never eat

If you live in Ottawa, you know what Saunders Farm is. For some it is a yearly tradition: go to the Farm, get your pants scared off you! (Or take the little ones during the day time for some Harvest fun and only a little spookiness, no pant scaring.)

If you don't live in Ottawa, but read this blog regularly, you know I've been working at Saunders Farm during the month of October, when the farm is open for Haunting Season.

You'd think with a name like Haunting Season, I'd be scaring people, right? Well, I'm not, I'm feeding them!


If you come out to the farm, follow the path under the arbor to the mazes and stop when you see this sign. The Farmer's Table is where you will find me, helping to make wonderful food from fresh and local ingredients. Gourmet burgers made with local, grain fed, hormone free, organic beef. Candy apples hand made with apples picked from a local orchard (the same one I took my children to for our own apple picking.) And more....


Meet Angela Grant Saunders, Director of Beauty, Teambuilding, and more importantly, Catering! Angela's love of good, local and fresh food, is highly contagious. Her enthusiasm shows when she talks about food, when she helps prepare food, when she enjoys her food. The Farmer's Table is Angela's baby, and her pride shows.

If you work at Saunders Farm and are part of one of the food booths, you are part of Team Angela! Go Team Angela!


Nestled in the trees, this is where you will find those fries I said I wasn't going to eat. I'm not going to, I don't eat fries, but I do make them, and I've had it from many, many, many tasters and eaters, that I make great fries.

Alright. I admit it. I ate one. One french fry. The only french fry I've eaten in 5 years! And yes, it was great!

Its hard not to make great fries when you start out with fresh potatoes, hand scrubbed and cut daily.

No freezing for these potatoes, from the cutter to the deep fryer.


First a slow and low fry, just to cook the potatoes gently (or as gently as you can be cooked in hot oil.) We don't want crispy fries yet, just softer potatoes. That takes time, have patience!


After a slow cook, then a rest, it is back into the hot oil for the fries. Really hot oil, not the same low temperature, where the fries will get crispy on the outside, but stay soft and tender on the inside. Golden brown in color, these are not the fries you will get at a fast food restaurant or will pull from a bag and put in you oven.


These freshly made fries come in two sizes, regular and family size, and they go fast! The smell of freshly cooked fries floats through the air around the Farmer's Table, making it hard to resist ordering a few for your family. Or a family size for yourself.

If you are interested in trying these fries, you better hurry, as the farm is only open until October 31st! Wait any longer and you'll have to wait a full year for the next Haunting Season.

And while you are there, don't forget to say hi to me. I'll be at the deep fryers, making mountains of fries that I am not going to eat.