I love fried foods.

There. I’ve said it. I love fried clams, fried haddock, fried scallops and fried shrimp. I love onion rings and french fries. You name it. If it's fried, I love it.

Deep fried, pan fried, fried in coconut oil or canola oil or peanut oil. And I don't need anyone telling me it's not good for me. I'm not stupid. But I do feel sheepish when I go to a good restaurant that serves lots of healthful, trendy, new age items and I want the deep fried haddock.

It's simpler to just go to a fried seafood place where there are no other options. Not that I don't like healthy food, too. I do. But that hot, golden brown, salty, crunchy, crispy, sweet succulent seafood is hard to resist. Plus, I don't have a lot of will power.

Even Saveur's website is in agreement about the virtues of fried seafood. For anyone who's not familiar with Saveur, it's a magazine and website that features gourmet foods from around the globe. "We're not in the 'frying makes everything better' camp, as we know that sometimes potatoes should be roasted and chicken should be grilled, but some foods take to a hot bath of oil more than others, and one of those foods is seafood ...,” it states.

Having grown up in Sanford, the place to go for fried seafood was Ted's Fried Clams, in Shapleigh. To this day, they’re the best fried clams I ever had. My parents would take my three siblings and me there on a Saturday or Sunday and we'd get the round cardboard quart containers overflowing with fried clams and onion rings and french fries.

A few years ago my mother told me she gave us kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around a half hour before we found out we were going to Ted's. Of course, she never had one.

Ted's was a little takeout shack back then. Now it's a bigger, more modern place where you can sit inside.

I went back a few years ago and the fried clams are still great, but somehow they didn't taste as good as they did when I was a kid sitting in the car fighting for the last one.

When I was 16 and working in a restaurant on a wharf in Cushing, one of the specialties was fried clams. The owner, Betty Olson, used to get the fresh shucked clams in gallon-size metal cans. She loved them raw — especially the big ones. I can still picture her in the kitchen, head tilted back, holding a gigantic dripping raw clam and dropping it into her mouth and swallowing it whole. I'm sorry, but it was gross.

But I also remember the aroma and sight of them, fried golden brown, as I was carrying them out of the kitchen. The Wyeths were frequent customers and the fried clams were Betsy's favorite dish. She brought two friends in once and insisted they order them. We had run out. She was bummed out. So was I.

For a few years now shrimp has been my fried seafood of choice. Maine shrimp. Unfortunately, with the decline of the sweet little crustaceans, it hasn't been on many menus over the past few years. I miss them sorely.

I make onion rings. Made some last night. They take a little time, but they’re better than any I get in a restaurant. Slice vidalia onions to whatever thickness you like. Throw the rings into a big bowl of flour to coat. Then into a bath of an egg beaten with 1/4 cup of milk, a few at a time. Meanwhile throw around 1/4 cup of fine breadcrumbs, some salt, and a couple tablespoons of corn starch into the leftover flour. Coat the rings in that, then shake off and drop them, like five or six at a time, into a large pan with a good inch of hot canola oil. Then just keep piling them up on a paper towel covered platter. Oddly, the ones on the bottom will still be crunchy when you dig in 20 minutes later.

With summer coming, the aroma of fried seafood will permeate the harbor. Most of the restaurants and food stands here and all along the coast of Maine serve it. I'll try to limit my intake of fried haddock, clams, scallops, oysters, onion rings and french fries to once a week. It won't be easy.

But, it's just as well. With all the pizzas, biscuits and cream pies I've been writing about over the last couple of months, I need to shed a few pounds before summer. Not that I'll be sporting a bikini anytime soon.

I’m not a chef. I lay no claim to being an authority on food or cooking. I’m a good cook, and a lover of good food. And I know how to spell and put a sentence together. This column is simply meant to be fun, and hopefully inspiring. So to anyone reading this whose hackles are raised because you know more about the subject of food than I, relax. I believe you.