The Green Mashed Monster

So it turns out green potatoes are toxic. Which is really too bad because on Tuesday night, hungry for some buttery mashed starch, I took two exceptionally green apples of the earth from the bowl on our counter, boiled them up, smushed them up and ate them. I also fed them to Tiffany.

Here's how it came to pass that I inadvertently poisoned us.

We had to make dinner. The choices were reheating some of our leftover homemade pizza and making a salad or reheating some of our leftover homemade chili and making a salad. But sometimes eating pizza on a Monday-through-Thursday night makes me depressed because we normally eat our pizza on Friday night as a celebration for having survived another work week. And Tiffany had had a big salad for lunch. So we decided on the chili, and I decided on the potatoes because mashed potatoes are one of my favorite foods.

"These potatoes are kind of green," I called out to Tiffany.

She came into the kitchen to examine them.

"Wow," she said. "They are actually green, not kind of green. Do you think we should eat them?"

"Yes!" I cried. "It's probably just new growth. Green is good."

I thought the green would diminish after the boiling and mashing. It didn't. Not even moderate-to-Southern-style quantities of butter and milk helped.

"Rebecca, those are still really green," Tiffany said, peering into the pot.

"Mmmm," I said, taking a big bite. "I don't care. I'm eating them anyway."

Well, of course Tiffany ate them too. And then after we had eaten half the bowl we'd served ourselves, we pondered what the color might mean. So Tiffany googled it.

"Most folks know not to eat potatoes that have turned green," Tiffany read.

Whoops.

Blah, blah, blah, some toxin called solanine...

"Consuming a large quantity of solanine can cause illness OR EVEN DEATH IN EXTREME CASES," Tiffany shouted.

I looked up from the TV, and considered what might constitute a large quantity.

"You poisoned us!" she yelled.

"I love you," I said.

But apparently we didn't eat enough of the potatoes to hurt ourselves. Still, we scraped the rest of the batch into the compost bin (this kind of green is good).

"You know what kills toxins," I said solemnly, reaching into the freezer. I held up the emergency Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies I'd bought the week before.

Tiffany took one. I took four. Better safe than sorry.

Thin Mints come in a green box. And that kind of green, my friends, is delicious.*

*Since this is basically a public service announcement , please forward to anyone you think might be susceptible to green potatoes. Especially if you think they might be able to offer me a book deal.