Hot Potatoes

I'm not the woman Joe first met

The first thing Joe changed about me was my feet.

He rubbed them every night for an hour, sometimes more. I never asked him to. My feet don’t hurt anymore. Decades of bad shoes, and now they’re different. I didn’t know feet could change like that.

The second thing was potatoes.

We were just ‘friends’ when they first came up, drinking coffee in his bed.

“What do you mean you don’t like potatoes?” Joe said.

“I just don’t,” I said.

“Potatoes are a superfood,” he said.

“I thought super foods were like açai?”

“Well, sure, but potatoes are a superfood not for what they do for you, but what they do as a whole. A field of potatoes could feed an entire country. They make the most calories per unit of land of any food. Perfection itself is an aberration. But the closest I’ll condone is the potato.”

I loved Joe’s rants. Especially while hungover. I could listen to what pleased him for hours.

His eyes drifted as he continued. Soon, he’d be quot…

“Bertrand Russell once said…”

There you go. I always wondered where he stored this information.

“Ok, then. Make me a potato.”

“A jacket potato,” he said.

“Jacket?”

“Yeah, a JP. What is there not to like?”

“It.”

“The potato is just the vessel,” he said. “For other foods. Chilli. Tuna. Eggs.”

“All that on one potato?”

“Not in the same bite, but yea. What do builders eat where you’re from?”

“Subway, probably.”

“Do you know that Subway’s bread cannot be considered bread here?”

“No,” I said, “Why?”

“It has too much sugar to qualify legallly.”

“What is it then?”

“A cake,” he said. “Anyways. In the Midlands, men with steel drums sell jacket potatoes on the high street. You can take any additions you’d like.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ll bring you there sometime.”

“To the Midlands?”

“Yea, Derby. To Swad. It’s a shit hole.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“It smells of yeast as soon as you hop off the train. They make beer there. Bass Ale. And marmite.”

“I want to go,” I said.

“Ok. Let’s go now.”

“Today?”

“Yeah. We can visit my Aunty Beasty.”

He called her. He said he wanted to show his ‘friend’ around Derbyshire and asked if she was around.

I put on yesterday’s clothes. We caught a train. He smoked three cigarettes in a row as we walked to a pub he’d drank in since he was twelve. They served a shot from leftover liquor. He and his mates drank that, and warm cask ale because they were cheap.

Joe’s phone buzzed on the bar top.

“Heyup Beasty. Yea. Yea, her name is Abigail.”

His face changed.

“Ah, yup,” he said and hung up.

“What did she say?”

“My dad’s there. He’ll be here in two minutes.” He looked around. “Do you have any perfume?”

“Perfume?”

“I don’t want him to smell fags on me.”

I met his dad, his aunt, his brother. We don’t live a train ride away anymore. We’ve moved country and state since then. But I think he’s closer to his family. He quit smoking. I take credit for that, but maybe it was the pandemic.

I still have never seen a ‘potato wagon’ on any street, but he makes us jacket potatoes sometimes. But usually I made a face.

He’d say, “I’m thinking I’ll make a, what do you call them, ‘baked potato’ for tea tonight.”

I’d flinch, but I’d say “alright.” I’d never complain about a dinner made for me.

It was always better than I expected. Not good exactly, but not bad.

At Christmastime, my sister made baked potatoes for Joe and my kids. The midwestern way. We all enjoyed how much Joe enjoyed them, though he’d have chosen King Edwards over Russets.

He’s learned how I liked mine, too. He prepared them that way. I liked them more each time but forgot by the next. I still made that face.

He stopped telling me when we were having potatoes. Until yesterday.

“I’m craving a JP,” he said. “It’s jacket potato weather.”

“That sounds great, babe.” I meant it.

He worked at the counter, grinding pepper for the bolognese sauce.

“They had the perfect potatoes at the butchers today,” he said.

“Is that right?”

“This country has a cruel lack of vegetable variety.”

“The things you do for love,” I said.

“Hah,” he said, hands in the sink. “Did you see that video I sent you?”

“No, what was it?”

“Marco Pierre White. He was a big influence on me, actually.

“Who is he?”

“The original sexy chef.”

“That makes sense.” I took the hat pan from him.

“He said a life without butter is no life.”

“You always say that.”

“Exactly.”

I set the table with ceramic plates and cloth napkins.

“I perfected this one,” he said, putting my potato before me. It was pre-buttered. The butter was actually yellow, real.

I added a handful of hand-grated cheese and a pile of bolognese.

Joe said, “Trader Joe’s has this cheddar that’s not Cheddar, but more of a Gruyère, and I thought it would melt well. It hasn’t disappointed.”

We hardly drink anymore, but I still love his rants.

I ate my entire JP. I was workman-like. I even ate the skin.

Miss Idaho Potato, 1935 via @historycoolkids

Our youngest liked his, too. The older one said potatoes were disgusting. He didn’t learn that from me.

I take care of my feet now. Joe has a thumb problem now. We bought a massage gun.

I could have learned about feet on my own. But not potatoes. I’d never have appreciated a potato without him.

And before Joe, I didn’t use butter. That’s the third change, I suppose.

I hope I’ve changed things for him too. I should tell him to call his dad.

Sometimes, I massage his hands the way he once worked on my feet.

Did you know potatoes, unlike carrots, don’t grow alone?

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Soundtrack:

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Thank you, reader.

You could be doing a million things, but you read this, and I’m sincerely touched to have spent that time in your head.

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