Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Grandma's Potato Ricer

Isn't it funny how the simplest thing can conjure up a memory of long ago?

Today I was in Target browsing the aisles when I remembered that I needed one of those pizza cutter wheel gadgets. So I wandered over to the kitchen gadget wall and start looking it over. There were vegetable peelers, graters, apple coring thingamajig, and dozens of other items. I glanced over a potato ricer and had to chuckle. When you put a cooked potato into a ricer and push down on the potato it squishes and the potato comes out of the bottom in tiny little pieces of potato that look like worms. It mashes the boiled potato. When you add milk and butter to it you have yummy mashed potatoes.

But that is not what made me chuckle. You see when I was a little girl my grandma had this really old-fashioned potato ricer. She used it all the time to make mashed potatoes and her potatoes were THE BEST! They were creamy but with little tiny chunks in them because of that perfect ricer. Both me and my sibs loved those potatoes. I can taste them now...that's how good they were.

When my grandma died I remember my mom asking each of us if we wanted to take something from the things she left behind. We all took a few things but my brother wanted that ricer. I was crushed because I kind of wanted it too but it was the only thing he wanted so I didn't say anything. The funny thing was that potato ricers are sold at Target for something like $10 each. Today I realized that I think the ricer story had more to do with the memory that the ricer created rather than the gadget itself.

Those mashed potatoes tasted so good but the memories of my childhood and time spent with my family and grandparents tasted even better.

2 comments:

Cindy said...

And oh, how that ricer has been used in this house!

Anonymous said...

Hey T...I never knew you really wanted that ricer. You can have it...NOT!!!

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