Of all the things I inherited from my mother—her joie de vivre, stubbornness, deep-held belief that tequila is an “upper”—her Italian culinary skills are not among them. My cooking can be best described as “edible,” so my husband has done most of it; that is, until I finally jumped on the air fryer wagon.
Despite their popularity, I could never justify one taking up precious counter space in my small New York City kitchen, but Laura Ashley’s new floral version (that exudes cottagecore charm) completely made me change my POV.
I’ve never been a confident chef for the aforementioned reasons, but I’ve found Laura, as I’ve come to call her, makes it pretty hard to mess anything up. Trader Joe’s sweet potato fries? Better than my oven. Steak tips? Yum. I’ve even felt emboldened enough to make chicken fingers with breadcrumbs I DIY’ed out of gluten free pretzel crisps. That’s a triumph for a girl, who just a few months ago, was microwaving egg whites because she was too lazy to heat a pan.
This air fryer has taken the guesswork and, frankly, the effort out of meal prep. We simply plop in some protein, hit the setting on the digital display, et voilà, dinner for two. No extra skillet or additional fancy gadgets needed.
Though the jury is still out from my colleagues in the Kitchen & Cooking Lab who have very strong opinions on the 70+ air fryers they’ve tested—purely aesthetically speaking, this one’s tough to beat. And, it happens to be on sale right now. Plus, my husband finally trusts me not to give him salmonella. You can’t put a price on that.
