On kitchen duty

 

Today I spent far too long making potato salad for our Mother’s Day lunch. Which really means I spent far too long peeling potatoes. My plan was to use Yukon gold, because I like the texture and because I wouldn’t have to peel them. But when it came to it, I couldn’t put unpeeled potatoes in a salad. I remember Paul Simms, now long gone, who was infuriated when restaurants started serving mashed potatoes without peeling new red potatoes.

We are having Christian’s family—his parents and his sister, her husband, and their two daughters, ages something like eleven and thirteen. Let me tell you that making potato salad for this crew of ten is no simple matter. Two of them—Jacob and his grandfather—do not eat onions. The grandfather is so vehement about it that I’ve never heard what his objection is, but Jacob has said, more gently, its not the taste but the texture. That surprised me, because I turn down few foods because of texture. I can even eat tripe in pepper pot soup, a good tongue sandwich, or the chicken-fried lamb kidneys my mom used to fix. Yet I know texture is a thing—we have family members who will not touch a mushroom.

Christian admits to being a picky eater, and today I replayed the cause. His mom always said she fixed four separate meals for a family of four. I swore I would never do that, but right now there are two single-serving containers of potato salad without onions in my refrigerator.

I was following a recipe from daughter-in-law Lisa, which called for a good bit of pickle relish and then an astounding amount of salt, which I reduced. I also cut back the mayonnaise, but the salad is still soupy. I’m hoping the potatoes will absorb some by tomorrow. There’s a reason you do best making these things ahead.

And then there’s the matter of eggs—the recipe calls for four hard-boiled. Christian doesn’t eat hard-boiled eggs. I’ve left them out, but I’m wondering if that’s not the reason there’s a bit too much dressing for the number of potatoes. I did add celery just to have something besides potatoes to justify the term salad. But truth is neither Jacob nor Christian like celery.

What happened to three bites for politeness? Or even, “Sit there until you eat it or go to bed”? One of my children didn’t like lamb, but he ate everything else in sight, sometimes ravenously. Instead of picky, he was sort of all-embracing, so I respected the one thing he really didn’t like, just as I ask people to respect my aversion to bell peppers.

Making potato salad for ten just wore me out. Maybe it was all the figuring of who eats what. Let’s see, what was I supposed to be doing today? Oh yes, writing a mystery. I did a big 300 words today—at that rate, I’m sure I’ll leave an unfinished novel. Maybe someone will turn it into a posthumous publication for me!

A truth about me: left alone, I would turn into slob. I’m eating dinner alone tonight. Jacob wants to order in, so we just ordered hamburgers from Shake Shack, which he tells me are the best. I shall eat in the pajamas I’ve been in all day. And I sort of haphazardly pulled the covers up on my bed.

Usually, I nap in the afternoon and then make my bed, so when the family comes for supper, it’s neat and I look disciplined. The physical therapist I just worked with was adamant that making your bed is a sign of a disciplined mind—he makes his kids do it every morning. So when he was coming, I made mine in the morning. Several years ago, the same therapist worked with me before I had surgery and when I was having a lot of problems. I remember I felt guilty or inadequate because my bed was always a rumpled mess. I simply didn’t have the energy to make it—just getting through the day took all I had. Somehow the fact that I make my bed every day is an indicator of how far I’ve come from those days. But today I give in to laziness.

It’s good to be lazy every once in a while. Try it. Tomorrow will be a busy, full day. I’m storing energy.