Vegetables, Fruits, And Mashed Potatoes

Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck prompts — Tell me everything you know about rutabaga and turnips. Make a list of other vegetables, fruits, objects, that are ignored.

I only remember rutabaga and turnips being cooked in soup and pot roast when growing up. I think when they were cooked alone as a side dish, only the adults ate them. I don't even remember tasting them alone. And I don't remember them growing in our large garden.

List of various VEGETABLE

Vadalia onion

Eggplant

Green bean

Endive

Tomatoes

Asparagus

Broccoli

Lettuce

Escarole

Then there were carrots, corn, potatoes, other onions, kale, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and cucumbers

List of various Fruits

Fig

Raspberry

Ugli fruit

Ice apple

Tart cherry fruit

Strawberry

Then apples, avocado, banana, blueberries, cherries, mandarin oranges, most other oranges or orange-like fruit, peaches, plums and many more.

Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck prompts —Paper clips immediately come to mind. What a great invention, ordinary and useful. How about a water sprinkler and a bowl?

In many ways writing is about honoring what we do not honor, letting the small, the odd, step forward, come into our vision - - and our hearts and minds. These offbeat elements are what layer the action in writing. Like life, writing is built detail upon detail, moment after moment.

Okay, now tell me everything you know about mashed potatoes.

I know it is difficult to find a photo of mashed potatoes on Unsplash that includes vegetables and fruit.

I grew up peeling potatoes for mashed potatoes and gravy made out of whatever meat was the main course. With a large family, that was a lot of potatoes to peel.

When I married my first husband, that was still my job to peel the potatoes, as he was a meat-and-potatoes guy. He would often prepare the meat and mash the potatoes and make the gravy, and leave it to me to add the vegetables and fruit, or dessert. There were four of us.

In my current marriage, I was introduced to a 'ricer'. "You put the potato through the ricer and it comes out perfect. Better than mashed potatoes," says my hubby now. That is what his mother used to do.

Well, she owned a restaurant, and it is hard to keep up with a cook when it is only a very part-time job for me! He jokes that I am slipping, as we haven't had them in a while.

I know that unless I make the gravy, I don't eat it as it is made with gluten flour in most places, and I am sensitive to gluten. That is about all I know about mashed potatoes.

Except one more thing, for those who haven't made mashed potatoes before, they are usually made with butter, milk/cream/half and half, and seasoned with salt and pepper, and most often topped with gravy.