Potato Alfredo

It wasn't supposed to be. Potato, I mean. But no matter how hard I tried, every time I opened that larder cupboard, there was no fettucini, no tagliatelle, and no, not even a morsel of macaroni.

Potato Alfredo is what you get from a woman who is holding onto her sanity with flimsy resolve. A woman who keeps track of the days of the week by checking her birth-control pills blister pack. What? You mean it isn't Wednesday? Oh-oh!

Potato Alfredo. A suitable metaphor for my life. It's not quite what it was intended to be, but it works. It's plain. In a foreign language. It's filling. Substantial. It would be so much better as a pasta, but there's nothing wrong with this starch either. I just imagine that the flavours would gel better if it was done right. Look. I'm not complaining. Potato Alfredo is different. It's original. A creative take on a common order. It just doesn't roll off the tongue quite right. The sauce is great, really, it can't be faulted. But the foundation is just that much too solid, rigid, bulky. And yet the right base remains elusive. I peer into the cupboards of my past, search the shelves of my upbringing, and I find no pasta. 

There are no stringy strands of spaghetti, no lovely long linguini. These things are scarce. They belong to The Other People. The Fancy People. The Exclusive People. 

I have potatoes. Honest, satisfying potatoes. Plain, grown of the earth, soil-kissed potatoes. I have a whole dress-up box full of potatoes. Potatoes disguised as milkshake. Potatoes pretending to be toast. Pancake potatoes. Potatoes to grow more potatoes from - and you know? You just can't do that with fettucini.

Potato Alfredo. Not what I expected. But it works.