Ever wanted to know who the Fair Fry Guy is?
Wanted to share with you something I wrote a while back, in honor of the Fair season kicking off in a few weeks time!
The Man Who Would be Fry King
By Mark Niu
His culinary creations are the perfect combination of freakishness, shamelessness, and sinfulness. The hundreds of thousands of people who attended California’s fairs most likely raised their eyebrows after seeing signs for deep-fried Cheesecake, deep-fried Twinkies and even deep-fried Coke. What diabolical mind could dream up such artery asphyxiating appetizers?
He is known as “Chicken Charlie,” and he looks very much like one might expect — jovial, bearded, and extremely compact, standing 5 feet 8 inches tall with a weight he describes as “two biscuits short of 300.” He’s actually 290 pounds and proudly boasts that his cholesterol and blood sugar levels are both excellent.
“I’m in good shape but overweight by 60 pounds,” Chicken Charlie says, apparently creating his own generous standards for a healthy height-weight ratio.
I caught up with 38-year-old Charlie Boghosian in his current hometown of San Diego. He chose to meet at one of America’s renowned calorie consuming establishments, Denny’s. The venue allowed Boghosian to come up with the revelation that his concoctions could not be much worse than the Moons Over My Hammy sandwich he was chewing on during our interview. Relativity, I discovered, is one of Boghosian’s favorite arguments, as he quickly cited a recent media lab test that showed his deep-fried Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich was only 15 calories more than a Big Mac. Perhaps he may not be setting the bar all that high regarding nutrition, but he does regarding originality. On his menu of 25 fun items, you’ll find his personal favorite deep-fried Oreos, his rising star deep-fried S’mores, the exotic deep-fried Frog Legs and the favorite among herbivores by default, the deep-fried vegetable combo, which includes everything from deep-fried avocados to deep-fried asparagus. Boghosian does admit to some experimental flops, like his inability to keep a deep-fried Hostess Snowball from falling apart and his failure to produce the ultimate contradiction, a fried salad. But in the current fair off-season, he’s now busy testing out next year’s menu which will most certainly include his latest inventions, Chardonnay marinated deep-fried Spam and a deep-fried zucchini with a hot dog inside.
“Yeah, I mean I could be selling other stuff but people don’t want raw zucchini. They want fried zucchini. If I was to sell raw zucchini with a dipping sauce, I won’t sell 2% of what I’m selling fried. I also want to make money too. I’m living the American dream.”
Boghosian is a Christian Armenian who was born and raised in Syria. He immigrated to the United States when he was 11 years old because his family wanted him to grow up in a Christian country. He spent his first four years in America without his parents, living in Boston with his import-export businessman grandfather, the man who taught young Charlie his entrepreneurial skills.
“He instilled in me to have my own business and not work for somebody, not rely on that paycheck, to go make my own paycheck,” Boghosian says. “I’ve never worked for anyone.”
Upon arriving in America as a pre-teen, Boghosian immediately began going to Boston flea markets to buy items like music cassettes, combs and sun glasses. He would re-sell the products to classmates, and in four years time, he had saved up $11,000. By that time his father had come to America, and they pooled their money together to move to San Diego and buy a small produce store, which later turned into a successful family-run liquor store. Boghosian went on to college at San Diego State University where he studied criminal law, and after graduating, planned to go on to law school. But instead, he got a “crazy idea” to buy a fast-food chicken business, an idea that was hard for his parents to digest.
“They thought I was crazy. They were very concerned.” Boghosian says pensively. “As a matter of fact, I had a lot of problems with them and they were telling me when are you gonna go get a real job? And of course they’re all proud now, but we had a little time in our life it was a little rough. But they always knew I was gonna end up doing something on my own.”
With a dead serious expression, Boghosian continues his thought by saying that he had previously told his parents he was going to someday become an FBI agent, a childhood dream buoyed by the fact that Boghosian could speak Arabic, Armenian, and French. But Boghosian decided to follow his stomach, skipping out on the world of secret agents for the chance to make it big in the world of secret recipes. His business, Chicken Charlie, now grosses more than a million dollars during the California fair season, which is made up of five fairs over four months. He has already filmed a television show with a production company and is now working on a book entitled 101 ways to Blow Your Diet. Things are moving so quickly that he has recruited his recent college-graduate brother, Tony, to join his business. There may nothing unusual about that, except for the fact that Tony earned a degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology and was accepted to medical school. Once again, it is a choice that does not sit well with his parents.
“They don’t like it all,” Boghosian says, shaking his head. “He loves what I do. And that’s what he wants. He wants to be his own boss in this business, the fair business. Everyone comes to the fair happy. You’re not dealing with anybody that’s not happy. We’re not dealing with people with pains for two years complaining because their head was not working right. I get people who bring their kid to the fair, just got done looking at the animals, they’re happy as heck, they’re about to eat deep-fried avocado before they go on the carnival ride.”
It is this combination of passion, naiveté and near child-like wonder that drew Boghosian into the business in the first place. His eyes light up when he reminisces about the time he was hanging around with his buddies and he first tried frying an Oreo. His face glows with pride when he talks about how he would hold barbecue parties that resulted in friends calling him weeks later to ask about his deep-fried figs.
“I would cook for my friends, my friends would brag about it for weeks. So I figured, how could I go wrong?” Boghosian beams. “I’m my own boss. I got a new car. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the luckiest person in the world. What more could I want?”
Perhaps the only thing missing in Boghosian’s life is a wife and kids, which he says he definitely wants someday. The mere mention of kids though, brings to mind a glaring question. Would he really feel comfortable feeding his own kids the same deep-fried combination of sugar and fat that he serves up to so many other children?
“You know, I think it’s okay for my kid in the future to have a Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich. I don’t think it’s okay for him to have four in one sitting,” he says. “It’s not the best for you. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you it’s great for you, it’s gonna make you feel strong and get you all the vitamins you need in a day. I’m not gonna tell you that. But at the same time you gotta balance it out for yourself and your life.”
And with those words of wisdom, our conversation is soon interrupted for the fourth time by another call on Boghosian’s ever busy cell phone. He chats on the phone about specifications for his newly designed trailer. There will be two Chicken Charlie’s trailers at the fairs next year, with the new one selling traditional Middle Eastern food.
“Next year I’m really excited because we are building a whole new trailer and we are going to do deep-fried tabouli. I’m sorry…” Boghosian laughs, realizing that he didn’t mean to say deep-fried, since after all, the plan is for “traditional” Middle Eastern food.
But suddenly, a look of wonder crosses his face as he marvels at the fact that he might have just thought of something new. He immediately suggests wrapping tabouli in romaine lettuce, dipping it in a thin batter, sticking it with a toothpick and then deep frying it to see what happens. Did I just witness the birth of his next masterpiece? I will have no idea until I see his trailer next year, and like the hundreds of thousands of fair goers, raise my eyebrows as Chicken Charlie unveils his new sizzling surprises.