I want to tell you about mashed potatoes!
Easy, no hassle, delicious!

A lot of years, past.
I was 13
We had lived not long in the big city. We were simple folk, from the north. From mennonite country. From fields of grain, farmers with not much in the bank but with huge hearts full of kindness. Fresh chickens, eggs just laid, honey from the bees in the back field. Bounty beyond what those in the know would count as riches.
More about that on a different day.
From this we found ourselves in a different land. Busy streets, traffic lights, crosswalks and people.
Lots and lots of people. A little townhouse on a hill. The same hill where, just a couple of miles higher, people, those with money in their pockets, spent days and weekends on skis in the snow. Not us.
We watched them. We didn’t join them.
The townhouse home was beside the busy road not far from the little church, surrounded by trees, just down the hill from the BIG houses. The ones where there were swimming pools hanging on to hillsides for dear life. From those houses and swimming pools you could look out over the harbor and bridge and a park the size of a city. Beauty.
A different life for sure.
We had, not much.
Oh don’t feel sorry.
We had what we needed. Nano sewed and cooked and people were important. Sunday gatherings, fellowship times,
loaves and fishes, for us.
People
always people.
Prayer times and tea times
chit chat and looking him or her in the eye.
Good times. Different. Hard.
That was when Nano went to work. More about that, later.
When she went to work I was 13.
Simple.
Nano worked
Papa worked
Big sister was away at school
Big brother was away at school
Me, the baby, jumped in as chief cook and bottle washer. Home from school and the activities that entailed and to the kitchen. I knew a bit from watching and learned more, from doing. I had seen Nano do what she did. Lovingly.
Caring
For us.
And so it began
Life.
The seed planted, grew. It flourished.
It turned out that this girl, skinny, naive and wondering what life would ever be
loved to cook. Enjoyed it but that was not the point.
It needed to be done and thankfully God made it a joy. A pleasure
One of the favorite, go to, comfort food meals in the
House house was
Steak and Gravy
Oh how I loved to smell that smell when I walked in the door.
I learned how to make it and it became a go to, comfort food meal for my own little family, many years later.
Here it is. Maybe you will like it.