You Don’t Need Gravy if You Have Butter

Daily writing prompt

What food would you say is your specialty?

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I could live for a very long time on potatoes and butter. To me, potatoes constitute their own food group. This was true growing up when I’d call my mom at work to ask what to make for dinner and she would always respond, “Peel some potatoes.” That meant that I should start with the essential element for dinner and go from there.

I peel potatoes with a paring knife not a peeler, in case you’re wondering. And every time I do, I think about the GI’s assigned to kitchen duty peeling huge sacks of potatoes, able to cut the skin off potatoes so carefully and fast that the end would be one long ribbon of potato peel. I’ve seen this in movies. I probably need a sharper knife, though.

Anyway, when I was in California visiting my daughter and her family, I made dinner one night. Quintessential Michigan weeknight dinner – meat loaf, mixed vegetables (fresh, not from a can, a departure from my mother’s remarkable cuisine), and, of course, mashed potatoes.

The meat loaf was a bit dry. I left it in the oven too long. It might’ve needed another egg. But the mashed potatoes were worthy of a magazine spread.

“Is there gravy?” one grandson asked. “No, sorry,” I answered. I never make gravy with meat loaf. I don’t know why, well, maybe because my mother never did. It would have been easy enough to do, from her point of view, since there was always a can of mushroom soup in the cupboard.

Anyway, after pointing out the grievous lack of gravy, my grandson said this, something I will remember on the list of about twenty truly memorable sentences directed to me in my lifetime: “Mashed potatoes without gravy are purposeless.”

He was then counseled by everyone at the table to put more butter on the mashed potatoes, which he did, and which seemed to give them more purpose. He had never considered butter as the premier gravy but maybe now he does. You don’t need gravy if you have butter. This is something I think could be printed on t-shirts and people would buy them. At least, people from Michigan and other heavily potato-focused cultures would.

I also make mean scalloped potatoes, like to die for, and fried potatoes you’d want to stuff in the pockets of your jacket to eat all day long. Truly. I’m not a one trick pony.