Don't Forget the Mashed Potatoes

Some years ago, when I was living in Iowa and the only potato choices were round and red or oblong and russet, I joined a potato-of-the-month club. The potatoes were sent from Maine, and even though I had read the pieces about potatoes grown in the Andes in Wendell Berry's The Gift of Good Land, when the blue potatoes arrived, I was both thrilled and astonished. We ate a few of them (they were delicious), then I put the rest away for Thanksgiving. My mother arrived for Thanksgiving on the Wednesday, full of stories about my brother's recent wedding, which I had not been able to attend because I had given birth a week or so before it. My favorite story about the wedding, which took place in San Francisco, was that when the older ladies got into the hired trollies to be driven from the church up the steep hill to the Fairmont Hotel, they all slid in a bunch to the bottom of the wooden bench seat because it was 1992 and they were wearing beaded dresses.

Because I was still exhausted from birth, nursing, and late nights, my mother took over many of the preparations for the Thanksgiving meal. I put the turkey in the oven; she puttered around the kitchen. I set out the various ingredients I had bought. I nursed the baby. Some time late in the afternoon, I glanced into the kitchen. My mother was crying. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "I don't want to have blue mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving!"

It is a holiday tradition in our house for someone (and it can be anyone) to be brought to tears about the food. I guess that's what you would call "over-investment".

Nevertheless, blue mashed potatoes are delicious, and my favorite.

Blue Mashed Potatoes

A good variety is "All Blue"

Ingredients:

As many pounds of blue potatoes as you think you will need, depending on the size of the crowd.

cream (once a year is okay)

butter

salt and pepper

Wash potatoes and cut them in half, unpeeled. Boil in salted water until you can easily poke them with a fork, but not so long that they begin to fall apart (start checking after fifteen minutes of boiling) When they are soft, drain off the water and return the potatoes to the pan. Set the pan on low heat for a minute or two to steam off any excess moisture. In the meantime, heat the cream gently but do not boil it. melt the butter.

Working quickly, pick the potato halves up one at a time by spearing them with a fork, and use a knife to peel off as much of the skin as you can, returning them to the pot and keeping the pot half covered to retain heat.

When all the potatoes are peeled, mash in the melted butter, vigorously, with a hand masher. When the potatoes are mostly mashed (in our house, at this point, someone inevitably says, "I took my potatoes down to be mashed," and someone else answers, "At the Million Dollar Bash".)

Now mix in the warmed cream with a hand-mixer, mixing quickly until the potatoes are smooth and fluffy. More cream is better than less. Add salt and pepper. Add more butter, tucking little bits here and there into the potatoes. Serve hot.

If they are no longer hot, they can be MICROWAVED.

Your mashed potatoes are truly blue! If you were really ambitious, you would also make yellow mashed potatoes, using the same recipe, with some Yukon Golds, and you would artistically swirl the two together in a large traditional bowl.

One thing I love about these mashed potaotes is that the next morning, when you get up to make mashed potato pancakes, they have turned deep purple.