Potatoes - For Lisa

I did a post a while back labeled Chocolate - For Laura. Because Chocolate made me think of Laura. Well, this time around it has to be "Potatoes - for Lisa" because of a hysterical conversation about potatoes (and other fruits and vegetables) one afternoon spent at Toucan Charlie's, the best buffet I have ever, or probably will ever, sample. But that's beside the point here. This post is about potatoes. Well, it's about more food than just potatoes. An alternative title for this post could be "Food". And Toucan Charlie's is definitely all about food, so maybe it's not beside the point. But the fact that it might not be beside the point is beside the point.

Moving on....

The key part of the conversation, without embarrassing Lisa too much (although if I could remember the dialogue word for funny word, I would probably have no hestiation whatsoever embarrassing her to a much greater degree) is that Lisa had just that afternoon discovered that vegetables came in more than one color. She hadn't known that beans could be not only green, but yellow, white or even purple. Most amazing of all to her was the idea that potatoes could be purple. How, she wondered, did they get the purple into the potatoes?

So, when I saw some purple potatoes at our supermarket the other day, I had to buy them. And while I was at it, I also bought some white and some red potatoes. I wasn't sure if the purple potatoes might dye the other potatoes, so I cooked them separately. (they don't - or at least, they don't color the water they were cooked in). Here they are all together.

The purple potatoes are more blue than purple inside, don't you think? So I was inspired to make a very patriotic looking potato salad out of it. There's a bit of yellow, black, and green in the extra ingredients, but America is really more than three colors anyway, yes? And just for the record, it's really YUM.


I had finally managed to make it to our local farmer's market on the very last Saturday they were open, bringing home several bags of vegetables with the best of intentions to make it all into a half dozen healthy, fresh meals. I also have a small but lovely harvest from my own backyard garden. Best of intentions never materialized and it was time to use it or lose it. As it was, a handful of tomatoes and some celery were already fit for nothing but the compost bin. But the rest of it was still fresh, just plenty ripe, so everything went into the pot and voila, minestrone. Even all the herbs were fresh from the garden. Doesn't it look yummy too? I haven't had any yet, but William the Soup Hater just announced it edible, so that means to the average person, it's probably downright dee-lish.


More kitchen activities - I know, what's gotten into me!? I bought a tin of extra large silky tea bags, more like tea purses, really. They are so pretty. I don't know if you can see from the photo but, when you handle it, it feels more like fabric than.... whatever it is. I wish they were reusable. The tea blend inside looks pretty too, with all those herbs, stems, leaves and flowers. It's called Goji Berry Pomegranate Green Tea. I can hardly waste to taste it.

And one more food pic, while I've got your attention. Here are two of the lovely thirteen peaches my front yard peach tree bore this year. I know, thirteen peaches. That's so cool. I was going to make a peach pie but so far they haven't made it past breakfast, where the peaches to cereal ratio is about 2:1. So sweet.


I lost one peach to a deer. I think it was a deer anyway. I don't think my cats have taken to eating peaches. It had fallen onto the grass and I forgot to bring it in. I found it half eaten the next morning and a depression nearby in the grass under a rose bush that looked just large enough to have bedded one of the half grown deerlings I've seen around the neighborhood recently. No, that's not right. Fawn. Half grown fawn. But deerling seems to fit the idea of a half grown deer more, doesn't it? Yearling? But these little guys aren't a year old yet.

It's rather telling that my lawn is so overgrown that you can see a "depression" in it. No one has mowed it for months. Hubby has been working doubles, William has been schooling and footballing. It hasn't been a priority. I've been.... well, I could mow it. In fact, there was a time when I would have been furious at the idea that a woman is any less capable of mowing a lawn than a man is. But I've had decades of handy and available young boys to mow for me and I have to admit I've grown rather fond of the "I'm a girl, how do you turn this machine on?" excuse. I know, lame. Hmmm, another good excuse. I could affect a limp. Effect a limp? (Why do we have TWO words that are so confusing!?)

Although, it's rather fascinating (though I doubt my neighbors share that opinion) to watch my gardens turn into wilderness. I'm actually rather proud of the fact that we have enough soil and water and plant variety that it can turn into a wild retreat. This is a harsh climate and geography and many places around here that are disturbed by humans, when abandoned, only turn into dusty fields of dirt with nothing but noxious non-native weeds.

But now we've moved past the subject of this post - food. Unless you want to eat weeds. Which is entirely possible. In fact, I have been known to eat weeds on a rather frequent basis. But maybe I'll save that for another post. I've worked up an appetite. Time to go get some soup.