The Mother Load

Published November 25, 2007
St. George Spectrum & Daily News

As I prepared my Thanksgiving feast this week, I did something I thought I would never do. On the advice of my friend, Kris, who shared our meal with us, I opted for adventure and did something different with my sweet potatoes. Some of you may remember a rather strongly worded column from a few years ago about my feelings on sweet potatoes and my absolute refusal to further sweeten them in any way. Thursday, I threw all of that out the window, grabbed my batch of mashed, orange goodness and covered it with brown sugar and melted butter. It was divine.

So what about that fabled column? Confession: I wrote the column from the perspective of one who had never even tried the fabled "candied yams." Disingenuous and unfair of me? Perhaps. I still contend that a) yams are a food not found in North America, therefore, not present at ANY Thanksgiving feast, and b) candied yams are icky. But my former point, ie: that adding anything sweet to an already sweet potato is to transform a perfectly tasty dish into something as sickeningly sweet as Shirley Temple covered in melted chocolate and drinking an energy drink...well, I was...I was...wr....wr...

So, I'm having a little trouble with "wr" word. It's nothing new. I've always had trouble with it. I mean, it's not as if I've never been "wr." I'm "wr" all the time. I just don't like to say it. And when I say I don't like to say it, I'm not saying I don't like to admit I'm "wr." I admit I'm "wr" all the time. I just don't like to say the word. It's a stupid word, and I'm very much NOT "wr" about that.

Okay, the issue at hand is sweet potatoes and my ignorant and very public assertion that sweetened sweet potatoes are of the devil. In the interest of fairness and to protect the good name of The Spectrum, a retraction is necessary, so I'm going to have to admit to being "wr" about the sweet potatoes. I'm just going to have to find a way to do it without actually saying the "wr" word.

-The political angle. Mistakes may have been made. I may have been misinformed about this particular issue. However, it depends on what the definition of sweet potato is. I don't really recall whether I knew that.

-The Freudian angle. I never had sweet potatoes of any kind at any Thanksgiving during my childhood. It's all my mother's fault.

-The Amazing Grace angle. I was blind...lost in a wretched, sweet potato-less existence. I've been saved! I see the light! I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee!

-The unwitting accomplice angle. I was duped! I've been had! He told me sweet potatoes were bad, and I believed him. I feel like such a fool.

-The George Gershwin angle. You say sweet potato. I say sweet potahto. Potato! Potahto! Marshmallows! Disgusting! Let's call the whole thing off.

Perhaps in another few years I'll actually consent to eating a bite of candied yams and will have to print a further retraction. It doesn't seem likely, but if I was "wr" about this... You're probably all wondering why I don't just buck up and say I was "wr" without the use of word shortening and quotation marks. After all, it's just a harmless little word. If I can manage being a single mom of five with a full time job and school I can do that, right? If I can hike the Half Dome, I can do that, right? You're right. Here goes nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, I was...I was...wr...wr...wrapped in a blanket of ignorance, but the alarm clock has sounded. (That was the metaphorical angle.)