Mother's Day Spuds

A pleasant, at-home weekend. On Sunday the air was so warm and calm that I fired up the ovoid grill to burn excess sticks and convert raw meat into something juicy and fine. At their mother's request — for Mother's Day, you see — the girls did some planting outside, mostly in pots. Some flowers, some herbs. Spring's in full flush.

With the grilled meat we ate, among other things, mashed potatoes out of a bag. On Saturday I happened to be at a large grocery store, a hypermarket really, but not the one that allegedly (ahem) bribed its way to spectacular growth in a certain Latin American country. I saw a bag of Yoder's Whipped Mashed Potatoes (whipped 'n' mashed: their wills thoroughly broken, I'd say), "Like Mom Used to Make!" and "It's Grandma Good!"

How's that for a double matriarchal seal of approval? But I doubt that my mother ever added hydrogenated cottonseed oils, sodium benzoate or sodium acid pyrophosphate (to protect color) to her mashed potatoes. (What color?) Besides potatoes, however, the main ingredients were butter and salt, which are the soul of mashed potatoes.

Anyway, the main selling point was that the sale-by-day was that day, so that a 2 lb. bag cost me 99¢, compared with a regular price of more than $3. Sold. It took about five minutes of nuking and stirring to get the contents ready for the table. For bagged and microwaved spuds, they turned out pretty good. Not an always-alternative to actual mashed potatoes, but much better than dried potato flakes in a box, which I lost any taste for years ago.