Dq’s Blue-Plate Special Loaded With Fat And Flavor

This week I reached out for Dairy Queen’s blue-plate special, the one and only Chicken Strip Basket.

Here’s the blueprint: four fried chicken strips, each about 1 inch wide and 4 inches long, a heap of french fries, two pieces of buttery Texas toast and a small cup of dippin’, drippin’ gravy.

Total calories: 860. Fat grams: 42.

Instead of Beanie Babies or Jurassic Park figures, Dairy Queen should give away little dolls dressed in hospital gowns. Eat five Chicken Strip Baskets, and they waive your application fee for the heart-transplant waiting list.

This is a four-pronged fat offensive. You’ve got fried chicken, fried potatoes, buttered toast and ploppin’, gloppin’ gravy.

The chicken strips are honest-to-goodness white meat - none of that compressed, reconstituted stuff. The zesty bread coating is laced with pepper. It leaps from the fryer golden brown.

The french fries are served plain and simple. As Martha Stewart says, it’s a good thing, too. I don’t want to sound like a raving Republic of Texas, Unabomber-style loony, but I hate it when french fries come through the window already seasoned.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but if a fast-food joint can salt and pepper my fries without asking, what’s stopping the feds from taking over every other aspect of my life?

The sopping Texas toast is appropriately big. Dairy Queen has restaurants in 49 states (only Rhode Island is DQ-free), so I wonder, how do the other states feel about Texas toast? Come on, South Dakota, where’s your pride?

Waist watchers might want to ditch the cream gravy for honey barbecue sauce. Right there you save 30 calories and 5 grams of fat.

The Chicken Strip Basket is served in a red plastic dish lined with waxed paper. Dairy Queen might consider a switch to fine Chinet, which not only absorbs grease better, but really impresses the ladies on a first date.