I love kitchen gadgets and appliances. No matter the size of my kitchen, every drawer and cabinet will be full of them. I pulled the juicer our from the back of one this morning, so I could squeeze the rest of the citrus in the fruit basket before we picked up the CSA — and more citrus — this afternoon.

I've been interested in getting an air fryer for quite some time. But the Wirecutter review that I read a year or so ago said, "hey, it's just a convection oven." And I knew I didn't have room on the counter for a convection oven.

I don't deep fry things that often — for health reasons, obviously, but also because it's such a mess. Inevitably, I want to do so and I realize I don't have enough canola oil to fill my Dutch oven adequately. I tend to crowd things in the pan, and then nothing's crisp and it's just disappointing and greasy.

But my Instant Pot died last month, and even though that too has been a bit of an unnecessary appliance purchase — I only use it as a pressure cooker — I decided to get a new one that came with an air fryer lid. I mean, if my cabinet is already crammed full with the Instant Pot, why not shove in another lid?!

I used it this past weekend to make fried chicken sandwiches — well, the fried chicken part, at least. And my god. It's a revelation. "Think of all the things I can air fry!" I said to Kin, listing off crab rangoon, egg rolls, and samosas to start.

I've become so accustomed to avoiding fried foods that I reckon it's going to take me a while to rethink my menus. But I'm going to keep experimenting with air frying — lugging this big pot in and out of the cupboard where it sits with all the other devices that, at the first successful meal-time, seemed like revelations too.