Two Versions of Eating Potatoes

by David Spiering

July 2013    

Baked potatoes have been a bittersweet memory to me for the past ten years of my life, because once I accidently baked them well. I rolled them in sea salt and arranged them on an oven grate—I don’t even remember what temp the oven was set at. I forgot about them because they were an afterthought, I didn’t want them to rot; I’d have to throw them away, and list them on my wasted food “shame” list. When they came out the oven they were beyond my relevant daydreams of being posh.

Subsequently, I thought I had baked potatoes mastered. I made some for friends to go along with salmon and salad. When they came out of the oven they were lumpy and hard, the middles still uncooked. I returned them to the oven. After my guests went home I sat out in the late night cool, an oversized hooded sweatshirt pulled over my body, it was like a shield of warmth covering my chest. I lit a Churchill corona and looked up at the stars and watched the smoke tail off in the windless darkness. I thought I won’t make baked potatoes for a long time.

My blood sugar nosedived and I wanted potatoes; I imagine that was how Dracula felt when he spotted blood. I started sautéing onions and garlic, I cut a link of sausage-less sausage in with it, some fingerling heirloom potatoes were next. I used a wooden spoon to move them in the pan, keeping them from sticking. I deglazed with homemade veggie water. I ground black pepper in it, and soon, it looked like beige lava. It came out of the pan in large sticky globs that I imagined I heard ticking like a front hall clock while it started to cool down. I put some high fructose free catsup and an organic brand of Worcestershire sauce on it. Perhaps some pub malt vinegar might have been a good addition. I’m glad my friends were not around as I ate this meal because it would be tough to explain it to people with an artisan appetite; it lacked appearance-craftsmanship, it looked worse than lumpy oatmeal, a misuse of my normal good skills. Its taste was pure comfort that’s similar to porridge, raisins and maple syrup covered with fresh cow’s milk. After I’m done, my gut swelled slightly, I felt like a shipwreck in my armchair, I sipped a beer for almost two hours. My gut swelled even more. I should have made Spanish rice, and I could have avoided this terrible bout of gastro inflammation and being marooned in this armchair with no energy.

David Spiering has worked as a cook, a co-op baker, a natural foods and produce clerk, and as a university English instructor. He is the author of the chapbook Crooked Litanies (Snark Press, 2005) and My Father's Gloves (Sol Books, Minneapolis MN, 2009).