Monday Miracle

I'm here this morning to report a miracle.

It probably won't seem much like a miracle,

but if you knew me at all,

you would be rising to your feet and shouting

 Hallelujah!

Because yesterday, I ate sweet potatoes.

And what’s more, I kept them down.

For 48 years, I have been unable to get an orange vegetable beyond the tip of my tongue. (OK, technically, it’s been about 46 years. According to the Duchess, I loved them as a baby... along with olives. I can't figure that one out either. )

Somewhere between birth and elementary school, however, I developed an aversion to all orange vegetables. It was crystallized after an unfortunate lunchroom incident in the second grade.

You see, I went to school in a place and time…

...when lunch was served on glass plates with little glass bowls for side dishes.
...when you were expected to say, “Thank you” to the lunch lady before you were allowed to sit down.
…and when you were required to clean your plate.

Generally speaking, I was thankful for my lunch on every day except orange vegetable days. On those days, the Duchess packed my lunch.

In my Campus Queen lunch box
with the nifty board game on the back.

 This system worked for us until that fateful day in the second grade when the lunchroom lady made a last minute sweet potato substitution in the menu.

I was not thankful.

Instead, I tried to convince the table nazi that substitution taters ought to be exempt from the clean plate rule. She would hear nothing of it.

I tried to sneak the taters over to my best friend’s plate.
They caught me.

Finally, I tried to slide them down with a little swig of milk for camouflage. For the record, I wouldn’t recommend it. Apparently, lunchroom milk and sweet potatoes do not make for good swigging. The sweet potato milk had no more reached the back of my throat when up it came, bringing the rest of my lunch with it.

All over the lunchroom table.

I left school early that day, suffering from an acute attack of humiliation which the sympathetic school nurse dubbed a virus. To add insult to injury, the Duchess was not home so they sent me to my grandmother.

And since Grandma didn’t drive, I was transported by way of the creepy old school janitor.  My how times  have changed.

And that, my friends, remained at the top my "most humiliating moments" list until an unfortunate bikini top incident in my late teens. It is also the reason that I have had an orange vegetable phobia for four decades, and the reason that no one… ever… badgers me to try them when they are sharing my table.

This doesn’t keep the Duchess from serving sweet potatoes though. In particular, she makes a sweet potato casserole that looks and smells delicious. It’s full of all sorts of sweet potato camouflage too… sugar and butter and pecans.   Every time it passes beneath my nose, the smell of all that sugar and spice makes me want to try them. Periodically, I take a smidgeon and bring it to the tip of the tongue. But then I have a flashback and have to go to the sink and wash off my fork.

Until yesterday.

For whatever reason I was feeling adventurous yesterday. I dropped an amount about the size of a baby spoon onto my plate, took a deep breath, and tasted it.

Eureka! It tastes almost like pumpkin pie!

I feel a tremendous sense of victory over Goliath.

I am strong.

I am invincible.

I am  sweet potato woman.

Next, I'm going to try a carrot.

And just in case your mom doesn’t have a sweet potato recipe of her own,

I’ll share the one from the Duchess, which today, I have named:

Sweet Potato Miracle

2 cups mashed sweet potatoes

1/4 cup melted butter

2 eggs

1/2 evaporated milk

3/4 cup sugar (half brown, half white)

dash cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice

Mix all together and bake in greased casserole at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Spoon on the topping:

1/2 c. chopped pecans

1/2 light brown sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

Lower temp to 350 and bake for 15 more minutes.

And you, too, can finally return to the cool table.