Mashed Potatoes of Love

Saucyman

I was cooking for my new love interest, I was going to make mashed potatoes, he wanted steamed potatoes. What is a woman to do?

-A salty olive

Salty –

Steamed potatoes? Is that so, over mashed potatoes?

Rather than addressing the more subjective issue of taste, lets look at the classical host-guest dyad.

There is an ideal in the Japanese tea ceremony of muhinshu (mu-nothing[ness], hin-guest, shu-host). Two or more people join together in ritual, only to abandon the defined roles of host and guest - transcending expectations and obligations creating, however transitory, an egalitarian and harmonious atmosphere. This selfless moment is counterbalanced by the notable fact that only one person can to pick up the single handle and pour the tea.

You are the tea pourer, the host. Playing by occidental rules, the host chooses the menu, shops and prepares the meal. The guest can bring a beverage and from a western perspective should offer to do dishes. You are on solid ground denying the request for steamed potatoes, but I imagine your concern is not with the rightness or wrongness of the request – instead how to handle the intricate issue of desire and will in a new romance.

Inviting someone you like a whole bunch into your home and all that is implied with a dinner invitation coupled with the more timeless desire to please someone, to be inclusive, to try something they like and want, you need to assert your will. Hold firm on your desire for mashed potatoes, but offer a chance for the steamed potatoes. Steamed potatoes at next the meal you share, possibly when he cooks for you, maybe the dinner conversation is about steamed potatoes – maybe your new fella can choose the right combination of words; sensual, enticing descriptions which make you really want steamed potatoes in the future. Because ultimately, even though you can make steamed potatoes to please him, it is always better if you choose them of your own volition.

And I am still talking about potatoes, I think.

That is from your end - from his end - if a love interest were making mashed potatoes for me, I would be more inclined to think about the semiotics than a definitive preparation. And I really am quite specific about my mashed potatoes – Yukon golds boiled in their skins, pushed through a ricer, folded with sour cream, melted butter, salt, black pepper, and sometimes chives.



If someone I thought was neat-o, handed me a bowl of fork-mashed, air-whipped, red with skins on, embedded with garlic or some other minor atrocity, I would be a little more interested in the implications of home, comfort and serenity than how I liked my potatoes cooked.

Just sayin, that is all.

Good luck and many bowls potatoes served all ways in the future.












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