So I’ve been writing this personal essay, and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t know whether I’m being relevatory enough, funny enough, honest enough, or whether the whole thing is just completely narcissistic, and why the hell would anyone care?
By around noon yesterday I wanted to tear my hair out. So I took a break to peel some potatoes.
I’d been eyeing The Tofu Cookbook’s spicy potato wedges or a few days. As a sidenote, I’d forgotten I’d even owned the Tofu Cookbook until last weekend — my mom had given it to as as a semi-joke wedding gift. Crayton hates tofu with the fire of mil demonios.
Even he would like these, though. Potatoes covered in cumin and cayenne pepper, served with a cool, creamy silken-tofu dip. I picked up some Mexican sweet potatoes at the supermarket — they’re white on the inside — and I chopped and marinated them, covered ’em in lime zest, roasted them in the oven. While they were cooking, I zapped the sauce in my food processor and added some cilantro because I thought that would taste good.
About 50 minutes later, I had crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside fries that were heavenly good. The sauce didn’t make me jump up and down. But it made a good, cool foil — a foil with protein! — to the spiciness of the potatoes.
Afterward, Lola arrived to clean, and we had a long chat about God’s grace, our weeks, swine flu boredom. (Stuff we usually talk about.) I offered her my extra batch of un-risen cinnamon rolls, which she accepted. By the time she left I felt much better about the essay. And by 7 p.m…. I’d actually come up with a draft I was happy with. Which is HUGE.
Maybe these fries will help you solve your writing problems, too. Or whatever else you need a break from. (They’re awesome with beer, by the way.) The recipe’s after the jump.
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