Confessions of a fried dough worker

I admit it: I tried to get out of it. When Heather Arquett, president of the Canaan Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary (and matron of honor in my upcoming wedding), mentioned she needed more people to work the fried dough booth at the fire company’s carnival last week, I tried to ignore her.

But she didn’t get to be president by letting people ignore her.

I love fried dough, really I do. It’s my favorite carnival food: crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, smothered with powdered sugar. But I had no desire to have a hand in the production process.

I reported for duty Wednesday night in grubby clothes with a borrowed baseball cap. The oil was already sizzling and several doughs were lined up, golden brown, ready for sale.

I didn’t get much direction.

“They’re $3 apiece,� Heather said, pushing me to the front of the booth to collect money from hungry carnival goers.

“Here, want an apron?� askedPenny Terry, treasurer of the auxiliary and Heather’s mother.

And with that, we were off.

There are four stations in the fried dough booth: dough roller, dough frier, dough plater and dough seller. The booth can accomodate about six people, three of whom will be rolling dough, the most time-consuming part of the process.

I think I sold about 10 doughs before it started to rain. The vat of oil (vegetable oil, if you’re interested) and the rolling table were safe from the rain, but the selling counter was soaked. We pulled in the condiments — the napkins were disintegrating, the salt had clumped and the parmesan cheese wasn’t far behind — which meant we had to completely dress all the doughs before handing them over to the customer.

And we had to improvise covers for the plates, since the rain immediately dissolved the powdered sugar.

Facing a 100-pound bag of dough and the prospect of few customers, Heather told the dough rollers to make bigger cuts.

“We have to get rid of the dough tonight,� she said. “One year we left some in the refrigerator overnight and when we came back in the morning it had busted the door open.�

Take note, fried dough lovers: You get more dough when it rains.

One of the biggest perks of working fried dough is that you get to sample the merchandise. I decided to have my dough with sauce and cheese, something I had never actually tried before.

I carefully spooned the sauce from the crockpot onto my dough (it’s hard to get exactly the right amount of sauce: too much will soak through, but not enough leaves naked dough) and dumped a mountain of cheese on top.

Heavenly. The sauce was seasoned perfectly with chunks of veggies. The dough was just sweet enough to feel like a treat.

“I asked Roma’s to make it sweeter this year,� Heather said. Roma Pizza on Main Street has made the dough for the booth for the past two years.

We ran out of dough around 8 p.m. There was some debate over whether to order more for the next night. The weather forcast called for intermittent rain all weekend, but Thursday was supposed to be the one good night. The decision was made to get twice as much dough.

As we gathered up the dirty dishes, Heather turned to me. “You had an easy night,� she said. “Usually we’re sweating like crazy and here until 11.�