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Book: Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times by Suzan Colón
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Authors: Suzan Colón
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are large. Decide that it probably doesn’t and boil chunks in lightly salted water until tender. How long is that? Poke a misshapen chunk with a fork. Is that done? Give chunk the bite test. Wish you had remembered to blow on potato chunk before biting. Ignore pain from burn on roof of mouth, drain potatoes, and transfer back to pot
.
Have brief internal debate about olive oil being healthier than butter, but worry: Will these mashed potatoes taste
the same as Grandpa’s with that substitution? Try to remember ever seeing olive oil in Grandpa’s kitchen … Nope, just butter and Crisco. Cautiously add a small pat of butter. Begin mashing potatoes—be surprised at how much arm has to go into this. Remember the first time Grandpa let you mash the potatoes, how grown up you felt, how you had to use both hands to push the masher through, how he laughed when you had to jump up and down to get any kind of mashing power through those skinny six-year-old arms
.
Add about a quarter cup of low-fat yogurt (surely it’s okay to put one healthy ingredient in here) and keep mashing
.
Ponder grainy texture of potatoes and thin flavor. Shrug and add a few good-sized tablespoons of butter and some salt. Do not expect to live forever, but try to enjoy life while living it. Note that these are definitely getting near how you remember mashed potatoes should taste. Add more butter and a slosh of milk. Feel that Grandpa, who lived simply and very well until he was seventy-seven, would approve
.
• • •
I never thought my first serious discussion about getting married would feel like a high-stakes pokergame, but that was preferable to the Mexican standoff it could have been. It was December of 2005, and Nathan and I were on our first vacation together in Tulum, Mexico, a few hundred miles south of the border, eating chicken enchiladas at a little beachside cantina. “So,” he said with a charming smile, “when are we moving in together?”
“When I get an engagement ring,” I said.
He looked at my hand. “So it’s going to be like that,” he answered.
“Yep.”
“Fine,” he countered. “I’ll see your engagement ring for one year of living together before we get married.”
I raised my eyebrows and smiled in admiration. “Deal,” I said, and we shook on it.
• • •
For twenty-one years I’d lived mostly alone, except for brief stints of taking on roommates: a soulful musician from Miami, a lovely friend who played Mary to my Rhoda, and Larry, who would eventually leave me for Jeff. (They are still happily married, and I adore them.) In that time, I’d amassed a lot of things that defined meand my living space—furniture, art, knickknacks, whatnots.
Now I was in the process of giving most of it away so I didn’t overtake Nathan’s apartment. I cheerfully parted with the square red dishes and noodle bowls I’d bought in Chinatown when I lived in San Francisco during the dot-com boom. I was happy to donate shelves full of books and bags of clothes to the local church thrift shop. The dining table and chairs went to the man who was kind enough to move my things from my old apartment to my new place, with my new fiancé, in New Jersey. In fact, I was so fizzy with recently engaged glee that I probably could have given away all my possessions, except for the heart-shaped ring on my finger.
And my potato masher.
Almost everything Nathan had in his kitchen—in his whole apartment, for that matter—was newer and better than what I had. His dishes were a complete set of understated modern china for four. His TV was a flat-screen. His potato masher had a matching red plastic handle and head, and it was only about a year old. Brand-new, a fresh instrument for fresh starts.
I looked at my potato masher, which had beenGrandpa’s. It was older than I was and burnished with use. When I held it, memories seemed to seep from its dark wooden handle right into my skin.
The family gatherings for Easter, Christmas,
.
Have brief internal debate about olive oil being healthier than butter, but worry: Will these mashed potatoes taste
the same as Grandpa’s with that substitution? Try to remember ever seeing olive oil in Grandpa’s kitchen … Nope, just butter and Crisco. Cautiously add a small pat of butter. Begin mashing potatoes—be surprised at how much arm has to go into this. Remember the first time Grandpa let you mash the potatoes, how grown up you felt, how you had to use both hands to push the masher through, how he laughed when you had to jump up and down to get any kind of mashing power through those skinny six-year-old arms
.
Add about a quarter cup of low-fat yogurt (surely it’s okay to put one healthy ingredient in here) and keep mashing
.
Ponder grainy texture of potatoes and thin flavor. Shrug and add a few good-sized tablespoons of butter and some salt. Do not expect to live forever, but try to enjoy life while living it. Note that these are definitely getting near how you remember mashed potatoes should taste. Add more butter and a slosh of milk. Feel that Grandpa, who lived simply and very well until he was seventy-seven, would approve
.
• • •
I never thought my first serious discussion about getting married would feel like a high-stakes pokergame, but that was preferable to the Mexican standoff it could have been. It was December of 2005, and Nathan and I were on our first vacation together in Tulum, Mexico, a few hundred miles south of the border, eating chicken enchiladas at a little beachside cantina. “So,” he said with a charming smile, “when are we moving in together?”
“When I get an engagement ring,” I said.
He looked at my hand. “So it’s going to be like that,” he answered.
“Yep.”
“Fine,” he countered. “I’ll see your engagement ring for one year of living together before we get married.”
I raised my eyebrows and smiled in admiration. “Deal,” I said, and we shook on it.
• • •
For twenty-one years I’d lived mostly alone, except for brief stints of taking on roommates: a soulful musician from Miami, a lovely friend who played Mary to my Rhoda, and Larry, who would eventually leave me for Jeff. (They are still happily married, and I adore them.) In that time, I’d amassed a lot of things that defined meand my living space—furniture, art, knickknacks, whatnots.
Now I was in the process of giving most of it away so I didn’t overtake Nathan’s apartment. I cheerfully parted with the square red dishes and noodle bowls I’d bought in Chinatown when I lived in San Francisco during the dot-com boom. I was happy to donate shelves full of books and bags of clothes to the local church thrift shop. The dining table and chairs went to the man who was kind enough to move my things from my old apartment to my new place, with my new fiancé, in New Jersey. In fact, I was so fizzy with recently engaged glee that I probably could have given away all my possessions, except for the heart-shaped ring on my finger.
And my potato masher.
Almost everything Nathan had in his kitchen—in his whole apartment, for that matter—was newer and better than what I had. His dishes were a complete set of understated modern china for four. His TV was a flat-screen. His potato masher had a matching red plastic handle and head, and it was only about a year old. Brand-new, a fresh instrument for fresh starts.
I looked at my potato masher, which had beenGrandpa’s. It was older than I was and burnished with use. When I held it, memories seemed to seep from its dark wooden handle right into my skin.
The family gatherings for Easter, Christmas,
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