Distraction Can Be a Good Thing

It keeps one from constantly giving depressing sickness reports.

I found out something interesting just now...

The year 2008 is the International Year of the Potato !

The potato is being touted as part of the answer to avert a world-wide food crisis.

There's even an International Potato Center :-)

This reminds me that we just had sweet potatoes for supper last night, so I'll give a quick rundown, which hardly qualifies as a recipe.

First off, if I'm making the fancy sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving, I'll cook them whole, in the scrubbed peel till soft. Cool them a bit and those skins will just slip right off.

However, if you want a product that looks like those things in the cans at the grocery store but tastes MUCH better, here's whatcha do:

-Rinse desired number of sweet potatoes
-peel one at a time over trash can and then,
-cut up into large chunks
-drop immediately into pan with two inches of water and 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
-repeat with other potatoes (sweet potatoes brown quickly when peeled, that's why you plop them right into the water)
-cook just until fork tender
-remove potatoes to bowl, turn up heat to high
-boil that water down close to a syrup and pour over potatoes...be careful, it will burn easily toward the end

Serve with butter. YUM!

This boiling off process is especially effective if you're talking on the phone and don't notice it's rising up over the pan edge until you hear this neat, "ZZZZSSSTT!!" sound.

The ensuing smell is not to be confused with aromatherapy, unless you are trying to rid the house of unwanted visiters.
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Here's another amusing tidbit or ten...

Mitt Romney lists his "top ten" reasons for dropping out of the presidential race, as given during a surprise cameo appearance at the Radio and TV Correspondent's Dinner, held last Wednesday:

10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I thought.

9. I got tired of corkscrew landings under sniper fire.

8. As a lifelong hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of the varmint season.

7. There wasn't room for two Christian leaders.

6. I was upset that no one had bothered to search my passport files.

5. I needed an excuse to get fat, grow a beard and win the Nobel prize.

4. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.

3. I wanted to finally take off that dark suit and tie, and kick back in a light-colored suit and tie.

2. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn't win, my fundraising dried up.

1. There was a miscalculation in our theory: "As Utah goes, so goes the nation."

No matter what happens in life, it helps to laugh once in a while.
 

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