Mashed Potatoes
by Sneha Madhavan-Reese
were never part of my limited repertoire.
I had never made mashed potatoes though
my husband sometimes did. After my daughter
had oral surgery, she looked at the list
of soft foods she was allowed to eat—
yogurt, applesauce, ice cream—and asked me
for mashed potatoes. In the kitchen,
by myself, on a quiet Thursday morning,
I Googled a recipe. Have I mentioned I hate cooking?
Left to my own devices I’d eat nothing
but raw vegetables and toast. But upstairs my daughter
was resting, and hungry. I peeled, and cut,
and boiled the potatoes. I mashed them with a fork
until my arm was sore (my husband told me later
that we own a potato masher). I remembered
the meals my mother made for my father
in his final months, all his favorite curries,
and the meals she cooked for me
in the week after he died, when it was only
us two in the house, elaborate Kerala breakfasts
and dishes I hadn’t eaten since childhood, like
appam served with potatoes and other vegetables
in a spiced coconut curry that we called, simply, stew.
I climbed the stairs to my daughter’s room,
the fragrance of buttered mashed potatoes
rising from the bowl in my open hands.
I had never made mashed potatoes though
my husband sometimes did. After my daughter
had oral surgery, she looked at the list
of soft foods she was allowed to eat—
yogurt, applesauce, ice cream—and asked me
for mashed potatoes. In the kitchen,
by myself, on a quiet Thursday morning,
I Googled a recipe. Have I mentioned I hate cooking?
Left to my own devices I’d eat nothing
but raw vegetables and toast. But upstairs my daughter
was resting, and hungry. I peeled, and cut,
and boiled the potatoes. I mashed them with a fork
until my arm was sore (my husband told me later
that we own a potato masher). I remembered
the meals my mother made for my father
in his final months, all his favorite curries,
and the meals she cooked for me
in the week after he died, when it was only
us two in the house, elaborate Kerala breakfasts
and dishes I hadn’t eaten since childhood, like
appam served with potatoes and other vegetables
in a spiced coconut curry that we called, simply, stew.
I climbed the stairs to my daughter’s room,
the fragrance of buttered mashed potatoes
rising from the bowl in my open hands.
Sneha Madhavan-Reese is the author of the poetry collections Observing the Moon (Hagios Press, 2015) and Elementary Particles (Brick Books, 2023), which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award and was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. Her writing has appeared in publications around the world, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2016. She serves on the editorial board of Canthius magazine and lives with her family in Ottawa.