I may or may not like potatoes.
I am making vegetarian shepherd’s pie for Thanksgiving this year. Many vegetarian shepherds will die in the making of my pie. I apologize for this. Note to vegetarian shepherds: Sorry. And also, run for your lives! My friends are getting a “castrated turkey rooster” for their Thanksgiving. It’s called a capon, but we’re calling it a “ball-less cock.” It’s supposed to taste better. Ball-less cocks are supposed to taste better. Who knew? We were trying to figure out how you’d castrate a turkey since birds have complicated balls, from what I understand. We decided it involved a lot of coaxing and pinching. And then a “Oh look over there!” and a big snip.
Anyway I am looking through recipes right now and I’ve decided I am on the fence about potatoes. I think, hey, potato, I will eat you. And then I eat it and I think, hrm, potato, you are not very exciting, even with butter and sour cream or mashed with garlic or fried with ketchup. The love just does not happen for me. It’s not that I hate potatoes, I just rather eat other things. People really like potatoes. I mean really, truly love them. And I think, am I the only one who thinks potatoes have the consistency of wallpaper paste? Do you even know what wallpaper paste tastes like? No? Well it tastes like potatoes. Anyway that is on my mind these days, potatoes. That and the fact that someone quoted me $1600 to recover the data off my hard drive. So I guess what I’m saying is that I rather eat a potato than pay $1600. I am close to saying fuck it all and just get a new one and move on with my life. This means that my life is not worth $1600, which is probably true.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I feel like you once told me you view potatoes purely as a ketchup delivery system (aka french fries.)
What? No traditional Korean double Thanksgiving dinners with both sides of your family? No kimchi and kalbi with turkey and mashed potatoes? No aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, grandparents?
the only reason i hate potatoes, is when i used to work @ a irish market, fools would buy the big ass bags of them in bulk…also, i never got over the taste really. so i can sympathsize with your plight. that seems kinda crazy just to repair the ‘puter…
So, let me get this straight. Somebody in the history of our history tried turkey. Said, yuk. And then proceeded to find a way to make it better and came up with…castration. I can’t help but think it must have been Abraham. I mean the guy performed a self circumcision at the top of a mountain at the age of 99, grandfathered 3 world religions and then made turkey more palatable. Props to Abe.
I love vegetarians with spicy chutney. They’re just so dry otherwise.
Potatoes being a starch, are best cooked twice, with two differant methods. For example, The best roast taties are made by peeling your spud and chopping into the size of a baby vegetarian’s fist.
Then put into COLD water and bring to the boil. Having reached boiling point immediately drain them and wack them into a hot oven (180 degrees celcius faranheit??? don’t know) in a baking dish with about a table spoon of any thin oil like sunflower oil for instance, and then toss them around about three times untill golden brown. You will be converted (said the butcher to the vegan)
Potatoe salad is best using boiled potatoes that had salt in the water. then ensure that what ever recipe you use that vinegar appears in the ingrediants. this gives the spuds their second cook.
If using potatoes in a mashed form of any sort, Don’t ever put salt in the water you boil them in as that will calcify the starch and ruin the taste. Any mashed potatoe recipe that doesn’t specify another second stage of cooking, such as baking, frying, deep frying, vinegarizing etc will be doomed to taste like cardboard.
As for moving on with your life post hard drive (sounds like a bad night with an ex good friend)
In the days before PC’s I used to fill diaries with notes that I intended to one day turn into a book after i had completed phychoanalysis with them.
I got really depressed one day and put them all in the paper recycling bin (ten thick volumes and 4 note filled address books).
As the truck drove off i suddenly thought”Oh shit, what have i done?”
Two weeks later I realised that i could hardly remember any of the memorable passages and the rest turned into anonymous spack filler.
Four weeks later I was writing clearer prose, my friends said I was happier, I felt like I actually had something to say (not that you haven’t or I didn’t) and I might even have met a girl. It was so long ago i couldn’t confirm that last bit but to sum up, don’t worry. the world of Annie Choi is in your head and your heart. It is not on your hard drive.
simon seasons, i love this.
Micah: Noice. I love ketchup more than potatoes. I decided that when we were at Mel’s. I miss making out with your old heater.
Grace: Yeah no double Thanksgiving. I stopped going back home for Thanksgiving a while ago because I couldn’t stop the urge to kill. It was a safety issue really.
Ian: Working at an Irish market doesn’t sound half bad. Better than working at like Blockbuster.
Simon: It’s not in the preparation or anything. Even good potatoes I am somewhat indifferent. It’s just rarely ever the most interesting thing on my plate. Also, I think you are right. I can just save the money and let everything go.