Cathie Shaffer: Smashing the competition: 11/10/09

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November 9, 2009

Anonymous The Daily Independent Mon Nov 09, 2009, 11:16 PM EST

We all have to be good at something and I am a connoisseur of mashed potatoes.

My mother likes to tell the story of how I was a chunky little child in a high chair, begging for more mashed potatoes. She also likes to trot out the story of my late great-uncle introducing me to green olives, but that’s a tale for another day.

For me, mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. When I’ve had a bad day, got my feelings hurt or become depressed by life in general, mashed potatoes are every bit as helpful as a session on a psychiatrist’s couch or a cheer-up pill from the pharmacy.

Being a farm kid, I ate a lot of whatever we raised, and potatoes were right there at the top of the list. I’ll take them baked, fried, julienned, au gratin or boiled, but only if there’s not a potato masher handy.

I suspect that part of my affection for this humble side dish came from the ritual attached to it during my most formative years. My mother would often let me pull the kitchen stool up to the counter where the pan of drained potatoes sat. Handing me the masher, she’d let me stomp and whomp the potatoes until they were all smashed up and ready for milk, butter and salt.

We used real butter, too, and whole milk for a creamy, bad-for-you delight. Over the years, as I’ve tried to reform my eating habits, I’ve attempted to make mashed potatoes with skim milk, chicken broth and fake butter. The result is something that looks the same but is oh, so different.

I’ve become an excellent mashed potato maker, if I do so say myself. And, on occasion, I can turn out a fine pan of gravy.

Except on the holidays.

Any given Tuesday evening, I can turn steak drippings into rich gravy worthy of one of those TV cookoff shows. Give me the same ingredients on a holiday afternoon, and the result will be a lumpy dreadful mess that even the dog will turn her nose up at.

My late mother-in-law was a sweet woman but not the best of cooks. So every holiday, she’d ask me if I minded making the gravy.

The good news was that however my gravy turned out, it was going to be better than hers. The bad news was that the most critical sister-in-law would always inspect my gravy and find it wanting.

That same sister-in-law always showed up just in time to eat, bringing along something she whipped up at home. If someone made cranberry salad, she’d shove it out of the way and announce that we simply had to try her cranberry-pecan fluff, which was to die for, thank you very much.

One Christmas, my MIL decided to turn the tables on her. Shortly before 1 p.m., the time dinner was expected to be served, in walked the critic with her bowl of blueberry fluff. She stopped and looked at the empty table.

My mother-in-law gave her the sweetest smile and said that since I was finishing the mashed potatoes, perhaps Ms. Perfection could do the gravy for a change.

We sat down to the table a few minutes later that sported my fluffy mashed potatoes — and a bowl of gravy that smelled slightly burnt and had lumps that could be seen from every seat in the house.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851.

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