The Country Mice

I’m quite enamoured of the lowly potato this year.

Over a summer that’s been too cool for tomatoes, too rainy for pumpkins, too weird for much of anything, the tubers of the ‘tater sit unassuming under the ground, waiting.

It’s a kind of potato divining — sticking a fork into the ground and predicting that on the first pry back, something will be there.

And all just from one plant — which itself began from a small piece of a potato tossed in a hole in late spring.

The potato was the first food to be grown in outer space.

I suspect they don’t do fish and chips at the international space station.

I had a Mr. Potato Head in the early 1960s. Mr. P was the first toy ever to be advertised on TV. In those days, the toy consisted of body parts to be pressed in to a raw potato. These days, the toy arrives with the body parts and a plastic potato, holes pre-assigned.

It’s still a weird little toy.

So at the end of the day I grated up these beauties, combined them with a small yellow squash and crumbled feta cheese, added a chopped onion and beaten egg, made them in to patties, brushed both sides with oil+melted butter, and baked them in the oven for a half hour.

Skeptical at the start (“Squash?!”), my lovelies ate and ate the patties, daubed with sour cream.

Yes, I’m liking these spuds a whole lot!