Chips are one of my favourite foods. I peel the potatoes, rinse them, thendrythem in a cloth. Nextslice them, not too thinly. The fat must be quite hot when the chips goin, but not smoking. (Put one chip in to test).

Fry for about five or six minutes until they look as though they are nearly ready.Lift them out,heat the oil until really hot.Lowerthe chipsin again,just long enoughto crisp them. This will take two to three minutes. When they are goldenbrown drain them on kitchen paper. Rush them to the table: they must be hot when eaten.

We had some American friends over, years ago, and I'd made chips, or French Fries as they called them. I said I liked mayonnaise with chips, the American way. They appeared mystified and said they'd not had them like that in the States.

Later I mentioned a little girl we knew who had lived in America andsang a song for me called 'Shoo Fly Pie'.They'd not heard of this dish, either.

This wasthe early eighties, before I could Google anything. I looked through various American cookbooks and found that 'Shoo Fly Pie' was a Pennsylvanian Dutch dessert. The pies were filled with molasses and cream, sometimes apples.They were put to cool on the kitchen step and the flies had to be shooed away.

Today's 'Western Mail' said that the best chippy in Wales is 'Top Gun' in Whitchurch, Cardiff.

I don't know where the 'Gun' comes into it. 'Top Net' or 'TopLine', perhaps, but let's accept that the mind works in a mysterious way. I must drop in if I'm passing.

My favourite chippy is 'Something's Cooking' in Letterston, half way between here and Fishguard.They've won manyawards and there's alicensed restaurant as well as the takeaway. Delights such as Banoffee Pie, apple tart and cream are on the 'Sweets' menu.

Looking at the history of the chip, it seems itwas a happy accident, invented in Saratoga Springs, New York,in 1853. A diner kept sending back the potatoes he'd ordered, saying they were not thin enough. In desperation, the chef sliced them very finely, fried them until crisp, then ladled salt on them. Result: a new dish was born.

Incidentally, in school cookery classes, we had to make game chips, which were sliced very thinly.

'Sglodion' is a Welsh name used for chips, but it is only in recent years I've come across the term.

A Microwave is called a 'Popty Ping'. How the language changes to assimilate the latest developments.

Off on a tangent now, I asked Oliver, who was going to a party,how did one chat up a girl in Welsh. It's simple, really, I should have known: 'Ti'n dawnsio, bach?'