ON POTATOES
There comes a time when you must make and then immediately eat food that is solid and good and reaffirms that you are, in fact, still here. I say “a time,” but actually this will happen many times over your life. I am sorry, but it’s true. This may be after a breakup, when you find yourself in the eighth month of a pandemic, or simply at the end of a bad head cold. It could even be a horrific combination of all three. At that point, I will say to you what I have said to myself: “Cook a potato.”
You cannot scrub a potato without having both feet firmly planted on the ground. Your hands must grip its rugged, knobby skin, and the smell of the earth will fill your nose. These are all very good things. It’s a meditation of sorts, but a meditation where you end up with a hot meal at the end. I will not tell you how to cook your potato, because that is a personal choice, but I will tell you how I cook my potato when I am in need of one.
I like to get a nice big russet and prick it many times with a fork before setting the oven at about 450°F (230°C). I rub the potato all over with olive oil, sprinkle it generously with kosher salt, and then set it on a wire rack over a sheet tray and bake it for about 20 minutes until its skin has wrinkled and it has softened slightly. Then I pull it out of the oven and rub it all over again, but this time with unsalted butter. I turn the oven up to 475°F (240°C) and return the potato to the wire rack for another 20 minutes until it’s crispy and, when squeezed gently with an oven-mitted hand, it yields.
After the potato cools slightly, I find a small, sharp knife and cut a line from one end of the potato to the other. There is something soothing about the precision of this ritual. There is also a sense of excitement because I am opening a package. The package, if cooked correctly, is full of warm, fluffy potato insides that I fluff even more with a fork, so that the steam billows out with all of the good smells. A potato needs very little at this point but depending on my mood I will add more butter and some crystals of flakey salt. If I truly need reminding that I will get through whatever is making me feel that I simply can’t, I will add crème fraîche and a tin of cod.
It is a small, beautiful thing to give yourself a potato, and to allow whatever is taking up real estate in your brain to drift away on a cloud of warm, earthy steam. A potato will remind you that you are capable not just of cooking something perfectly, but of being resilient too. It is a celebration of your own steadfastness, your ability to take a knock and come back a little wiser, a little more tenacious than before. Sometimes life is hard in ways you don’t always see coming. But think of all the potatoes out there, just waiting to be a comfort.
Copyright © 2023 by Christine Flynn. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
