here to confess..

... to perpetuating an outright lie. But it was at least 97% harmless, (pretty amusing as well!) and until I go to the effort to unburden my conscience - no one would ever be the wiser.  Funny to be hearing that from the person who tried my best to raise children to' keep your mouth shut'. Meaning: don't be telling lies, but remember that you do not have to tell every thing you know. It is often to your benefit to just keep it to yourself.

One of the recipes I have made nearly a dozen times over the past three days was for creamed potatoes. The first time I tried (always a learning curve, mostly what not to do the second time) I thought I was supposed to use a electric mixer to get them smooth. A large mess ensued. So I put that aside and got out the smasher. After doing that recipe several times over the course of the day, I woke up the next morning with sore muscles in my biceps. Had to stop and think: 'what did I do?', and laugh when I realized it was due to smooshing potatoes.

It is a yummy recipe. Especially interesting in this drive-thru-fast-food world since you start with actual potatoes that have to be washed, and peeled then chunked up by hand. The cubed potatoes are cooked in chicken stock, that has been made with onions, mushrooms and carrots, so they absorb the yellow'ish tint of the stock. Then after you smoosh, you add butter, a creamy herb spread, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Really good. But also very lumpy. So I decided perhaps they should cook a bit longer, get more tender, to smash up smoother. With only marginal success.

This is the part of the story where the blatant lie comes in. Reluctant to take full responsibility for spooning up such a chunky item, I started telling people: when my kids were little I told them that lumpy potatoes meant there was a lot of love in there. If you ever go some place and eat mashed potatoes that do not have lumps, you will know they were not made by someone who loves you. The more lumps you find in your potatoes, the more love there is, along with care and devotion from the maker of the mashed potatoes.

In the course of dishing up potatoes over three days, alternating with a tasty asparagus recipe that had a cholesterol laden cream sauce, I predict I told that untruth about one hundred times. I don't think the burden of guilt will keep me up too late. My conscience is already pretty clean, just from this little Saturday night visit to the confessional.