Baked Potatoes
thoughts about what feeds us in difficult times
NOTE: If you have just migrated over to The Unexpected Shape with Esmé Weijun Wang from With Love & Squalor, you’ll see that I’ve eased you into this new newsletter with—yes! Another newsletter edition about baked potatoes. I felt that this would be a cozy, inaugural way to ease into this new version of our newsletter. And if you haven’t clicked on over to the ABOUT page, which you can access via The Unexpected Shape logo at the top of the main page.
The humble baked potato has fed me spiritually and physically through years of chronic mental and physical illness. After I was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in 2014, and could only fall asleep sitting up in bed, I started to keep a bag of unwashed potatoes near the kitchen light switch. On many mornings, when I am equally unwashed, I will grab one and prepare it as I let the nightmares melt away.
I don't know who taught me to pop one into the microwave. Both baked potatoes and microwaves are, to my mind, distinctly American, and my immigrant parents come from an East Asian island that doesn't make much use of russet potatoes. The greatest evidence of this potato-shaped absence is the fact that I ever used a microwave to bake a potato at all. A microwaved baked potato will be edible, but the texture will be all wrong. In order to be fluffy, the baked potato must be baked, which is a feat requiring an oven, foresight, and patience. Without any one of these things, you will be left with something barely resembling a baked potato; you might ask yourself, shaking your fist at the heavens, why you dared to attempt a feat that you had no proper equipment for.
Here are the instructions: scrub the potato, stab it 10-15 times with a knife, depending on how upset you are, crank up the oven to approximately 450 degrees F, and go do something else while fifty minutes pass. The fifty minutes are key, because a partially uncooked potato is at best disgusting, with a texture approaching crunchiness, and at worst inedible. When I am famished, the question of whether or not I should bother to make a baked potato is a truly puzzling one. If there is anything else in the house to eat, I'd be better off giving that a go. But I do love baked potatoes, and patience is a virtue for a reason—a grown-up virtue that signals an ability to listen to more than the purest Id.
I hope it has not escaped your attention that it takes approximately as long to bake a potato as it does to have a therapy session. There are all kinds of things you can do while waiting for a potato to bake, including doing your nails, answering email, scrolling endlessly through depressing social media feeds, arguing with trolls online, and organizing the recycling, but I like to journal. In difficult times, the fluffy insides of a baked potato are good for my soul; so is the act of writing out my feelings, however disturbing. In fact, I used to encourage myself to jot down my most unpleasant thoughts. To do so in a notebook is akin to a form of writerly hyperemesis, or a dare: can you bring yourself to admit what a terrible creature you are? The reward lies at the end of the fifty minutes. You emerge from the cave, bedraggled and starving. The potato is in the oven. Unlike you, who are now raw and bleeding from profoundly adult self-examination, the potato has formed a sturdy, protective shell around itself.
To eat the baked potato, I like to slice it down lengthwise, hold both ends, and push them toward the middle. All of the fluff forms in the center. Cheddar cheese and sour cream is a luxurious way to enjoy a baked potato. Butter and salt is simple and delicious. If we have Country Crock or some other form of spread in the house, I use that—I grew up with margarine and spreads because of the low-fat 80s, and I still prefer the taste of their false nature to expensive European butters. After dressing the potato, I give thanks to the Blessed Mystery, that higher power, that is about to feed me. A baked potato is cheap and comforting, and while it may not be the most nutritious item on the menu, I indulge in one here and there to remind myself of my own ability to wait for better things to come.
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