The potato dilemma

Brian Wilson

My household has a problem with potatoes.

Like most people we go to the grocery store with the best of intentions. We make a list and plan ahead to the meals we want to have or what we can prepare in advance and package for lunches and quick meals.

We may go several months in a row of smooth sailing of getting into the routine of spending Sunday afternoons on meal prep for the week and then having a neat and tidy refrigerator with packaged meals ready to go.

The challenge is when our schedules throw us for a loop. In total disclosure it is often my schedule that is the most erratic, with special meetings to cover or having to go to multiple evening and weekend events.

This past summer season has been especially challenging with all the cool things that have taken place.

While I will take some of the blame of getting us off our regular meal schedule and into the habit of too-frequently needing to stop at the last minute at area fast food restaurants, I am not the only one capable of meal planning and preparation in my household.

Alex’s excuse earlier this summer was his involvement with the Medford Area Community Theatre play and since then he has been “volun-told” to help out with a variety of other projects from helping to keep the grass cut at the Medford Curling Club to chaperoning visiting marketing princesses around the fairgrounds during the fair. In all fairness, the last gig doesn’t seem like such a bad one.

I also can’t complain about my wife, Kim, too much. Last winter she got drafted to be the fair board president and has spent just about every moment of her free time either at the fair office doing a truly insane amount of paperwork or on the phone with fair board members and volunteers attempting to put out fires or keep other ones from coming up while navigating a complicated set of state regulations from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection.

So as you can imagine, our best intentions of making healthy and nutritious meals in advance goes out the window as fast as Pete Klingbeil’s rubber chickens flew off the Parkfest stage at last Thursday night’s concert.

This point was hit home as my son, as 17-year-old boys do, was rummaging around our kitchen looking for something to eat. Considering he grew another half inch taller in the past week, his need for sustenance is understandable.

He happened upon the cupboard where, in more normal times, potatoes wile away their time before being boiled, diced, chopped or mashed and turned into meals.

Instead of potatoes, Alex found a bag that contained more liquid than solids. According to the label on the side of the bag, it at one time, long before, had contained potatoes, but now contained what could only be described as a science experiment.

With the appropriate amount of retching we got things cleaned up and made a pledge that if we were to purchase potatoes in the future we would need to make sure they were used or disposed of promptly.

Over the weekend, we went grocery shopping and brought home a small bag of potatoes. We had plans to make shepherd’s pie. As of Tuesday they have yet to be used. I know this because Alex has set a reminder on his phone to alert him each day and has been dutifully checking on them so that we do not have a repeat of produce going to the dark side.

I dream that with the start of the school year we may go back to some sort of normal schedule, but really, after 28 years of doing this job I should know better and 10 months from now will be wondering where the time went.

Do yourself a favor, go check on your potatoes.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.