Allow Me to Digress

This title is inspired by Pablo Neruda’s "Tonight I can write the saddest lines."  Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.  I wrote that from memory!  I remember memorizing that line as a new hire in a company where I used to work for.  I was very bored with my computer based training (tons of CBTs) then.  (Eds, I remember I made you believe that I know the entire poem in Spanish! I know two more lines but then they’re not related to this post. 

I have committed to cook something each week. Honestly, I was really lazy to do stick to that yesterday, the last day of the week, but then Discipline told me to do things that I have to do even if I don’t feel like doing them.  So I chose something simple, which was better than not cooking anything.  Mashed potatoes (Chinese: 土豆泥; Italian: purè di patate; Spanish: patata triturada; French: purée de pommes de terre ). I mashed potatoes until my hands hurt.

I had done this before and I decided to do it the way I used to do it.  I did research about simple mashed potato recipes and those pretty much look the same.  Here are the ingredients:

potatoes

butter

salt

ground pepper - I love putting a lot of pepper, but just enough not to make me sneeze.

Here’s something about mashed potatoes from Wikipedia.

Mashed potato, (mashed potatoes in American English and sometimes called smashed potato), is a common way of serving potato in many countries worldwide. It is made by mashing boiled potatoes (peeled or unpeeled) and mixing in milk, cream, butter or vegetable oil, and sometimes cheese. A French variation adds egg yolk for Pommes duchesse that is piped through a pastry tube into wavy ribbons and rosettes, brushed with butter and lightly browned.

Mashed potato is also an ingredient of various other dishes, including Shepherds’ pie, Colcannon and potato croquettes.

In addition to butter, cream, or milk, mashed potato may also be seasoned with salt, pepper (often white pepper, to blend in), and/or a dash of nutmeg…In many American households, the top of each serving is hollowed with a spoon in order to form a gravy and/or butter volcano crater.

Potatoes, especially mashed potatoes, have a high GI-index which some consider is bad for health.

What is GI index?!

Glycemic index (also glycaemic index, GI) is a ranking system for carbohydrates based on their immediate effect on blood glucose levels. It compares carbohydrates gram for gram in individual foods, providing a numerical, evidence-based index of postprandial (post-meal) glycemia.

I don’t feel like reading further.  Too complicated for me hehe.  Good or bad, it doesn’t matter to me.  Mashed potatoes taste good!  It won’t hurt to enjoy some once in a while.  Ang lahat ng labis ay masama. If you want to read more about why mashed potatoes are bad for you… go ahead,here’s the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index</a></p></strong></p>

Pro-potatoes site: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=48

How I Cooked the Potatoes

I washed the unpeeled potatoes, about 4 small potatoes in all, and then drew a deep X mark on one side of each with a knife. I forgot where I learned this, but the X would "burst" once the potatoes are cooked and you can peel from the opening.  I boiled the potatoes and let it to boil and boil, hoping it would be much easier to mash. I just have a regular fork to mash them. Caution, very hot! Let the potatoes cool first.

There is another way which I saw on the internet - peeling the potatoes, dicing them, then boiling.  Sounds much easier to mash, but then I was pretty stubborn about sticking to what I used to do.  I ended up having to cut the cooked potatoes into small pieces to that they’ll be easier to mash.

It took me two hours or more to finish everything.  From boiling, mashing, and mixing stuff together.  I mashed two hours of my night away, thinking about many things starting from how I used to play with my food when I was a little kid (when no one was checking on me) and then how lonely I was right then mashing potatoes in a quiet little kitchen on a Saturday night.  I thought about happy, sad, funny, happy, funny, sad, sad, and then sad thoughts some more until I decided to "mash" those sad thoughts as I "mashed" the night away.  Overall, it was pretty fun.  Much better than sleeping.  Or reading or watching tv to get myself to sleep.  What a Saturday night.  One day, I just might miss Saturdays such as that.

Pablo Neruda’s Poem: http://www.westal.net/hp/mint/poems/puedo.htm

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 15th, 2006 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Edibles and Other Related Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.