I haven’t been able to master the ‘smashed potato’ until possibly the other night. And I also haven’t been thrilled with most of the Instagram recipes I’ve tried, but this one that Amy shared a week ago actually turned out splendidly. I quartered large Yukon gold potatoes and boiled them til just fork tender, then rolled them in olive oil in a roasting pan, and smashed them with the bottom of a heavy glass. Previously I’d boiled them too long and they just mashed. I got the timing right on these so that they flattened without mushing. I roasted them for awhile til they were brown on the bottom and starting to crisp, and while they were in the oven, I (over) caramelized half a small onion I had open. Then I flipped the potatoes, layered some with the onions and sliced Havarti, and when I ran out of onions I left the remainder bare. They were delicious!

I accidentally ate all the onioned potatoes that night, but saved the rest, and reheated some of those the next night with grated parmesan and ‘bacon’ bits, and turned the rest into hash browns with a fried egg for tonight’s supper. I’m grateful to have potatoes, a kitchen to cook them in, and a small plot of peace in a crazy world.

It feels so dissonant to enjoy these small and gracious pleasures, the seemingly steady security of my little neighborhood, while people elsewhere are reeling from the tragedy of yet another war. How do we hold both the trauma of human aggression and the beauty of nature and life at the same time? This requires a longer, deeper practice of equanimity than I have mastered, and some profound wisdom I have only occasionally glimpsed. Suffice to say that though I cannot leave the topic of Israel’s 9.11 unmentioned, I also remain speechless.

My heart breaks for the innocent lives ended and upended in both Israel and Gaza, and for the terrified hostages; as well as for the non-human animals who are always ‘collateral damage’ in the explosive devastation of wars. My heart breaks for the planet as a whole as even more finite resources are wasted in another flagrant power struggle among humans who have more in common than different, while our species as a whole plunges willfully toward its own demise. As my heart breaks I hold even more dearly, with an almost desperate gratitude, the daily treasures of my own tiny, fortunate life.