A Craving

Potatoes.  Spuds. Taters. Pommes de Terre. They are a homely looking creature.  All roundy and bumpy and rough with sand and dirt.  At least the freshest ones are.  The ones that you have just scratched out of the honest dirt in your own back yard.  Every spring, with high hopes and a trowel, you stick ugly wrinkly knobby things with roots growing out of them into preferable sandy soil.  You watch until there is a cluster of wrinkly, emerald green leaves poking up.  Then you cover them, hiding the nascent growth.  The plant rebels, sends out more roots which grow into more lovely potatoes.  Then you leave your potato plants alone making sure it gets plenty of water, sometime watering every day in the hot, rainless summer of the PNW.

Watching, endless watching.  Smushing all the brown potato beetles as soon as you see them.  Watching for the blossoms that signal potatoes are forming.  Poking a finger in the soil and wonder to yourself “Is that a rock or a tiny potato?”.  When the blossoms begin to wither you begin the treasure hunting, the plundering of the earth for the precious nubbin of “new potatoes”.  Gather just enough for one gluttonous meal and then leave the rest to grow and develop.  Rinse the sand off, rubbing them around in the water so that dirt and sand and perhaps some of the very papery thin skin fall off.  Take the unassuming orbs and steam them in a proper steamer basket.  Whilst the steaming is going on you chop some fresh herbs. Chives and a bit of parsley are a must with a touch of basil or dill if you have them. 

When a paring knife can be poked through a potato with just a bit of resistance you dump the potatoes in a lovely serving bowl relishing the moist dampness of the steam.  Add a healthy knob of butter and scatter with herbs.  Season with a generous sprinkling of salt and as much fresh ground black pepper as you desire.  After serving yourself a generous portion you will stab an orb, look at it, glistening with butter and sporting an herb coat.  Blow on it, don’t forget to blow on it. 

As you are chewing and savoring and tasting all the flavors and textures you are silently laughing at the people who say, “potatoes are so cheap to buy, why do you go through the bother of growing them?” 

Philistines.