The Potatoes Are Rotten

So here comes another Friday, which certainly, is the most highly awaited day of every week. Meal planning has always been the most exciting part of my Fridays. Meals, especially dinner, has to be special and interesting. Last Friday, I brainstormed half the afternoon and enlisted names of food that we had been badly longing for but haven’t cooked or eaten in longer-than-recent past. The names faced a tough competition and shepherd’s pie was crowned winner. An enthusiastic and excited me jumped on to the next episode of gathering all ingredients. 

Oh no! The potatoes!

The starchy, tasty, popular yet humble potatoes had rotten. Huh! what would I do without this food crop.

 Is it just that we would be longing for a hearty shepherd’s pie over a longer time period now? “Oh no, there is no way I could sulk over this any longer,” I said to myself. To overcome the blues of not being able to cook and eat who was crowned, I glanced through the list. All I knew then, was a mirror there would have better narrated the noticeably lugubrious visage on my face. And since there wasn’t one (mirror), I was only left to realize how the absence of potato could temporarily make your life a desperate impasse. And having said that, it is important to justify with the list I made that afternoon.

Alas! none of the above was possible. The condition of potatoes were most likely due to spurt of humid weather conditions and I am to blame for not checking on them earlier during the week.The humidity also led to downpours almost the entire last week but a day or two. Unfortunately Friday had seen the week’s highest downpour all day long with indeed very wet areas and rushing to the nearest grocery was impossible.

Going by the saying, “there is always a first time for everything,” I finally made truce with myself for overlooking the condition of potatoes. But simultaneously promised myself,”this is also the last time for any such mistake.” After all, I don’t want to be held guilty for depriving myself or my spouse from indulging in guilty pleasure on Fridays. Or should I say, our Fridays are meant for, “Hello Calories and Hello Taste” and any such indulgence is impossible without these tubers food storing bodies in our pantry. Since we all know potato as one of the leaders in carb and starch marathon, almost all of us mentally advocate it’s limited consumption in today’s date. But it’s no show in the kitchen means:

 None from my list above

 No Fries,Wedges and Chips

 No Hash Browns

 No Mash

 No Roasts

 No Scallops and innumerable etceteras

Oh! can I really hang in with all that?

 

 

Little Wonders

So I decided to take a break from my pending household chores, checking e-mails, phone calls, and have an entire day to myself, which means, completely engulfed in myself. I did not even want hunger apologizing, “Sorry to interrupt but I am on.” And I treated myself heartily to rule out any such odds. And then it was my time. Talking about time, I decided to look back. I was all gung ho about my childhood, to which, I am sure, most of us would say, “I second that.” Childhood is all about losing a contest and still getting awarded with, “Nice try and I am proud of you.”  It is about not getting judged on questions tagged silly and getting patient answers from elders. This reminded me of my grandmother, who was patient enough not just answering my questions but also narrating interesting stories everyday. As a five year old, my excitement knew no bounds when I was back home from school and ran to her. She readied herself for an interesting talk session every afternoon and I wondered what did she have in store. One such afternoon, I found her flipping through a carefully preserved album. The images immediately caught my attention because-

-they were black and white,

             and

-the children in those photos were unfamiliar to me.

 

But even before I could throw my question about who I was looking at, it was grandma pointing towards herself in the photo asking, “how did you like me in that cute little ballet dress? “ and “ this was when I was your age and was photographed with my cousins during a birthday party,” she furthered. I took a close look, and looked closer and closer, stuck by awe. After moments of close investigation into the photograph, I questioned, “You are my grandmother and you couldn’t  be small as I am, right? Aren’t all grandmas supposed be all grown up with silver hair and glasses ?” 

 

She bursted into laughter, gave me a tight hug and said, “ Back then, I had a grown up grandma too.” 

 

And like always, I was convinced by what she said, even if that kept me wondering “how” for a jiffy.

 

Back then, those thoughts were plain and simple, not silly. They are timeless memories capable of making me smile every time I remember them.

 

As evening neared, I was unwillingly into winding up the date with self to fix dinner and zeroed on trying a new recipe. I started to prepare and wondered, what if I end up cooking a not-so-tasty new meal tonight, would I judge my own cooking skills or simply say ,”nice try ” to myself.