Writing a weekly column is not all wet kisses and sunglasses. It requires 52 ideas per annum when I only have three or four, at best.
Once in a very blue moon you get a compliment that almost outweighs the vitriol (like from my friendly foe retired sheriff John Ford).
This past week was different.
In the middle of still another Hitler update on the History Channel, I got a call from one Dan Cashman. Normally I don’t even answer the phone with unknown ID numbers. I don’t know why, but I answered the call.
Cashman sounded like a semi-sane sort and wanted to visit. Whoa. I have had people who hated me and the column, but no one ever offered to deliver the complaint in person. But I have lived too long already, so I invited him to come along.
An hour later, he walked across the Cobb Manor driveway and did not appear to have a bomb strapped to his chest. What he did have was two bags of Maine potatoes.
C’mon in!
The backstory (how Hollywood) is that I had written a hilarious (I thought) column the week before about not being able to make mashed potatoes. The end product of my effort was certainly not mashed potatoes because I used a high speed juicer instead of your ordinary kitchen mixer. Inedible. I believe they were “pureed potatoes” instead of mashed potatoes. But one fan said it was the funniest thing she ever read and posted it on her refrigerator, the very highest compliment.
I liked Cashman right away, not only for his bags of Maine #1 potatoes from the Willard C. Doyen farm in Mapleton but for the Maine Potato Council apron (to keep the potato splatter off my shirt) and a T-Fal potato masher, plus several recipes on how to make “real” mashed potatoes.
Cashman, another Irishman with a potato fetish, warned that his T-Fal potato masher would require the application of substantial “elbow grease” for a successful product. My father always suggested the use of “elbow grease’ even though I had precious little.
I checked out the potato council recipes and one suggested mixing the butter and milk in a hot pan before pouring it into the potatoes.
While biding time waiting for the Patriots game on Sunday, I put the Doyen Farm potatoes and the potato council recipes to the test, even melting the butter in the milk. The product was much better, at least recognizable as mashed potatoes, but still much too lumpy. It is a good thing I had no company to feed. The next time I would increase the milk from one cup to two and boil the potatoes for 20 minutes instead of 15 minutes.
I was so preoccupied with the potatoes that I omitted the onions and mushrooms from the accompanying meatloaf (Worcestershire, mustard, paprika, thyme, and garlic). Meatloaf with no onions? I slammed the onions and mushrooms into the half-cooked loaf and crushed the meat around them. Let’s not tell anyone.
Perhaps the problem was not the recipe but my feeble “elbow grease” with the T-Fal masher. I have already consulted Amazon.com and ordered an electric mixer. One step at a time.
My next step will be the biggest challenge of all: Gravy. If you think my mashed potatoes are bad, you should see my “gravy.” Hopeless.
Now that I have accepted and used my first potato payola, my next weekly column will be about BMW sedans. I shall sit back and wait for a call from the dealer.
You never know. Black, two-door please, with high speed driving lights.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Rockland for 30 years.