One Potato, Two Potatoes
Linda Hladik taught me how many potatoes it took to feed company. Solomon Ballantyne, a full blood Cree, taught me how to cook those potatoes in a driving rainstorm while he whipped up a shore lunch for three, lightning in the air, up on the wild Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan. Linda's lesson, yea these many years gone, was one of the most important I ever learned. Linda was a wonderful cook, and practical. She knew all kinds of simple tricks I had never heard of, and wanted to learn. One was the proper number of potatoes to feed the crowd, one to one hundred. I remember the day, honest. It was at Linda and Dave's house, another one of many fabulous home cooked meals Pam and I ate there over the years. The dinner had been "packed away", and we were in that quiet conversational interlude between great meal and dessert, to be followed by time to clear the table and wash dishes. All the gossip and bi-family