Mashed Taters

[Prettier words to follow this hideous photo, I promise and apologize.]

Comfort food.  That's all well and good, but sometimes it is good to be uncomfortable.  

No, I'm not suggesting that you eat a salad instead of this pot of creamy, buttery, starchy goodness.  By all means, skip green stuff from time to time (although, if you are thinking a salad sounds better than spuds during these hot summer months, might I suggest you try this sweet and tangy Chinese Napa Salad or a creamy, bacon-studded Broccoli Salad?)

When I want to feel numb, I could eat comfort food.  I could also stay put in my comfort zone.  In my comfort zone, I don't have to feel scared or awkward.  I can just bundle up, hunker down, and exist.  

That's what I used to think, anyway.  Except, sometime within the last six months, I realized that existing comfortably is pointless.  Plants exists.  You know, like weeds.  Here are some other things that exist: dust mites and mongooses (mongeese?).

Do I really want my existence to be lumped in with that of a rodent-like mammal?  Not really.

Yet, the days that I choose to exist uncomfortably prove to be the most rewarding days of my existence.  Uncomfortable days are days with stories because they are not of the norm. 

 Harry Potter--for example--his life was so uncomfortable (but awesome) that it was worth seven books of stories.  And then there's Jesus.  Jesus lived upon this earth for a mere thirty-or-so years, and yet his story was so out of the norm each day of the thirty years that he lived that over 2000 years later, it is a story still being told.  A God who became man to die so that all who believe in the truth of this sacrifice for their redemption can know Him personally and live for eternity saved from the results of their sin?  That definitely sounds uncomfortable, but it also sounds extraordinary.  

So, I want to live extraordinarily, abnormally, uncomfortably because then I can actually be alive.  And I will do so while I eat some mashed taters.  Join me?

[And because I feel sorry for you, a pretty taste from my summertime, and a hint at what I'll be discussing next week.]

Mashed Taters

Yields: about 8-10 servings

Ingredients:

6 or 7 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-2" sized chunks

1/4 cup butter

about 3 tablespoons milk (add more for thinner potatoes)

salt and pepper to taste, or seasoning salt

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

Add chunks of potato to a large pot of salted water (enough to cover the potatoes well with water).  Bring pot to a boil, and allow potatoes to cook for 20 to 25 minutes until easily pierced with a fork.

Drain potatoes and return to the hot pot.  Add in chunks of butter and begin mashing with a potato masher.  Add in milk and desired seasoning.  

Continue mashing until potatoes reach desired consistency.  For creamier potatoes, add milk a tablespoon at a time and alternate between mashing and stirring with the masher.

Serve with extra butter, of course.