One Potato

Someone was talking about funny things we've done with food over the years. Or more accurately, the absurd things our obsession/compulsion has made us do over the years. It was prompted by a couple of paragraphs in the OA 12 Steps and 12 Traditions (the "12 & 12") book where they do a quick summary of all the things we might have done for food: eating spoiled food, eating frozen food, stolen food, etc. etc. We reminisced about doing drive-throughs pretending you're ordering for several different (imaginary) people, having that unique experience of eating food simultaneously too hot and frozen because you can't wait for the microwave to thaw it properly, buying food for guests, making sure there was "enough" so you could have much more (eaten alone) than they would ever get, or want, and that idea that seems to have originated with Louie Anderson, having to buy the extra "almost home cookies" ---those are the ones that you polish off before you get home!

We were laughing our guts off. I used to go through the donut shop drive-through and I would even order donuts I wasn't as fond of, because it would look too suspicious to order a dozen of the one I really liked. Besides, after eating 4 of one kind, it's nice to mix it up a bit before you go on to the rest! Eventually, what floated to mind was potatoes.

Yes, potatoes. I'm half Irish and the rest mostly Scots, so the potato is practically a birthright. It was so important in my family, it should be on the family crest. My father would complain if we didn't have potatoes at least six meals per week, and I seem to remember having them for lunch and supper when I was pre-adolescent.

When I married Fuzz and started cooking regularly, the potatoes came too. I would buy at least the five pound bag, but often a bigger one, particularly if they were on sale. Now, two people shouldn't be eating all that many potatoes, but I had a thing for potatoes. I was always worried that there wasn't enough. I think it was because the potato was my hunger buffer, the way it was in Irish families. Not enough meat, veg looks a little weak? Plop on those fluffy potatoes with extra butter!

And if I was cooking potatoes, two potatoes did not a pot fill. Too much water, too much room, they'd get too watery, it was wasteful... so I'd peel three more. Just to fill up the pot, don't cha know. And if the Canadian Armed Forces dropped in unexpectedly, well, we'd be good! I'd plop extra potatoes on Fuzz's plate. "I don't want that many potatoes!" he'd whine. So I would grudgingly scoop them back into the pot. Truth was, I wanted that many potatoes, and so I needed an eating buddy...

Oops, I have to be at a meeting in 15 minutes... gotta go! I'll finish this later.