Potato War Quotes

Music is storming, driving, relentless, devotional, slinky, subtle, heartbreakingly-beautiful sounds that, lyrically, switch from the cynical to the sanguine, the defeated to the defiant, dealing in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, panties, God, Auden, Johnny Cash, cold potatoes, too-much-money, not enough money, writer’s block, flowers, animals and more flowers. But maybe I’m projecting here.

Honestly, we don't kick or bite or throw potatoes at all our guests." A crooked smile touched Lord Bradford's lips. "Your family has spirit," he said, taking his hat from Azalea. "I enjoyed the evening." "Well, yes, you've just come from a war," said Azalea.

I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein-- side by side with... visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said, "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and nexe year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don't consider myself a real peeper-they go in for bedrooms, but it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.

It is easy to think of potatoes, and fortunately for men who have not much money it is easy to think of them with a certain safety. Potatoes are one of the last things to disappear, in times of war, which is probably why they should not be forgotten in times of peace.

Potato picking was tedious, dirty, exhausting, and cold. I rather liked it.

To his surprise he felt a moment of regret, of sadness that his quest for his mother and father would soon be over. As long as he searched for them he was prepared to be hungry and ill, but now that the search had ended he felt saddened by the memory of all he had been through, and of how much he had changed. He was closer now to the ruined battlefields and this fly-infested truck, to the nine sweet potatoes in the sack below the driver's seat, even in a sense to the detention center, than he would ever be again to his house in Amherst Avenue.

[I] threw open the door to find Rob sit­ting on the low stool in front of my book­case, sur­round­ed by card­board box­es. He was seal­ing the last one up with tape and string. There were eight box­es - eight box­es of my books bound up and ready for the base­ment! "He looked up and said, 'Hel­lo, dar­ling. Don't mind the mess, the care­tak­er said he'd help me car­ry these down to the base­ment.' He nod­ded to­wards my book­shelves and said, 'Don't they look won­der­ful?' "Well, there were no words! I was too ap­palled to speak. Sid­ney, ev­ery sin­gle shelf - where my books had stood - was filled with ath­let­ic tro­phies: sil­ver cups, gold cups, blue rosettes, red rib­bons. There were awards for ev­ery game that could pos­si­bly be played with a wood­en ob­ject: crick­et bats, squash rac­quets, ten­nis rac­quets, oars, golf clubs, ping-​pong bats, bows and ar­rows, snook­er cues, lacrosse sticks, hock­ey sticks and po­lo mal­lets. There were stat­ues for ev­ery­thing a man could jump over, ei­ther by him­self or on a horse. Next came the framed cer­tificates - for shoot­ing the most birds on such and such a date, for First Place in run­ning races, for Last Man Stand­ing in some filthy tug of war against Scot­land. "All I could do was scream, 'How dare you! What have you DONE?! Put my books back!' "Well, that's how it start­ed. Even­tu­al­ly, I said some­thing to the ef­fect that I could nev­er mar­ry a man whose idea of bliss was to strike out at lit­tle balls and lit­tle birds. Rob coun­tered with re­marks about damned blue­stock­ings and shrews. And it all de­gen­er­at­ed from there - the on­ly thought we prob­ably had in com­mon was, What the hell have we talked about for the last four months? What, in­deed? He huffed and puffed and snort­ed and left. And I un­packed my books.

We all must abide by the rules, but some of us must follow more than others...Like Sweet Potato and her twisted leg, we have been born with a defect--the defect of not being white. Only, unlike Sweet Potato's case, there is no correcting it. There is only correcting the vision of those who view it as a defect, though not even a war and Reconstruction have been able to do that.

Thousands of those men and boys died here, and I have recently learned that their inhuman treatment was the intended policy of Himmler. He called his plan Death by Exhaustion, and he implemented it. Work them hard, don't waste valuable foodstuffs on them, and let them die. They could, and would, always be replaced by new slave workers from Europe's Occupied countries.

At the war’s end, I, too, promised myself that I had done with talking about it. I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something—anything—else. But that is like wishing I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there’s no subtracting it.

Now I believe minions are important. I mean, they work 24-7, gathering resources even when you don’t bother to log on.” Technoblade, the Great Potato War.

Kaz snagged her wrist. "Inej." His gloved thumb moved over her pulse, traced the top of the feather tattoo. "If we don't make it out, I want you to know..." She waited. She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope in to stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow. She reached up and touched his cheek. She thought he might flinch again, even knock her hand away. In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself. "If we don't die this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?" His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough. She dropped her hand. He took a deep breath. Kaz had said he didn't want her prayers and she wouldn't speak them, but she wished him safe nonetheless. She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it.

Detective Carl McCarl put on his sunglasses. Um, Carl, wasn’t Detective Carl McCarl already wearing sunglasses? Well, he’s wearing two pairs now. Two pairs of sunglasses are extra cool.

The meaning of sex is illustrated by two eponymous heroes of British history, King Edward VII (who flourished in the years before the First World War) and the King Edward variety of potato which has fed the British working class for almost as long). The potato, unlike the royal family, reproduces asexually. Every King Edward potato is identical to every other and each on has the same set of genes as the hoary ancestor of all potatoes bearing that name. This is convenient for the farmer and the grocer, which is why sex is not encouraged among potatoes.

They came here on Sunday, 30th June, 1940, after bombing us two days before. They said they hadn't meant to bomb us; they mistook our tomato lorries on the pier for army trucks. How they came to think that strains the mind. They bombed us, killing some thirty men, women, and children - one among them was my cousin's boy. He had sheltered underneath his lorry when he first saw the planes dropping bombs, and it exploded and caught fire. They killed men in their lifeboats at sea. They strafed the Red Cross ambulances carrying our wounded. When no one shot back at them, they saw the British had left us undefended. They just flew in peaceably two days later and occupied us for five years.

Kaz snagged her wrist. “Inej.” His gloved thumb moved over her pulse, traced the top of the feather tattoo. “If we don’t make it out, I want you to know…” She waited. She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope into stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow. She reached up and touched his cheek. She thought he might flinch again, even knock her hand away. In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself. “If we don’t survive this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?

During The Empire Strikes Back, in the famous asteroid scene, one of the deadly asteroids is actually a potato.

A few of them stopped to get Detective McCarl’s autograph, but then they keep kept running.

Sai qual è la frase che più ammiro? È: "Lo splendido giorno è finito, e noi siamo maturi, ora, per la tenebra". Quanto avrei voluto conoscere quelle parole, il giorno in cui vidi le truppe tedesche che sbarcavano da un aereo dopo l'altro e le navi che attraccavano in porto! Invece riuscivo solo a pensare: maledetti maledetti maledetti. Se mi fossero venute in mente le parole "Lo splendido giorno è finito, e noi siamo maturi, ora, per la tenebra", mi sarei in qualche modo consolato e sarei stato pronto a uscire e affrontare le circostanze, e non mi sarei sentito sprofondare il cuore.

And I’m dead serious too,” said Detective McAlex. “Dead serious about the fantastic deals at Cake World! This weekend, Cake World has a fantastic offer: all cakes are half price. That’s right, half price!

P.S. Mrs. Maugery lent me a book last week. It’s called The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892–1935. They let a man named Yeats make the choosings. They shouldn’t have. Who is he—and what does he know about verse? I hunted all through that book for poems by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon. There weren’t any—nary a one. And do you know why not? Because this Mr. Yeats said—he said, “I deliberately chose NOT to include any poems from World War I. I have a distaste for them. Passive suffering is not a theme for poetry.” Passive Suffering? Passive Suffering! I nearly seized up. What ailed the man? Lieutenant Owen, he wrote a line, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.” What’s passive about that, I’d like to know? That’s exactly how they do die. I saw it with my own eyes, and I say to hell with Mr. Yeats.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

Of all the things that happened during the war, this one -- making your children go away to try to keep them safe -- was surely the most terrible. I don't know how they endured it. It defies the animal instinct to protect your young. I see myself becoming bearlike around Kit. Even when I'm not actually watching her, I'm watching her. If she's in any danger (which she often is, given her taste in climbing), my hackles rise -- I didn't even know I HAD hackles before -- and I run to rescue her.

I have something for you,” she said as she pulled his leather gloves from the sleeve of her prison tunic. He stared at them. “How—” “I got them from the discarded clothes. Before I made the climb.” “Six stories in the dark.” She nodded. She wasn’t going to wait for thanks. Not for the climb, or the gloves, or for anything ever again. He pulled the gloves on slowly, and she watched his pale, vulnerable hands disappear beneath the leather. They were trickster hands—long, graceful fingers made for prying open locks, hiding coins, making things vanish. “When we get back to Ketterdam, I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs.” He looked away. “You should. You were always too good for the Barrel.” It was time to go. “Saints’ speed, Kaz.” Kaz snagged her wrist. “Inej.” His gloved thumb moved over her pulse, traced the top of the feather tattoo. “If we don’t make it out, I want you to know…” She waited. She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope into stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow. She reached up and touched his cheek. She thought he might flinch again, even knock her hand away. In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself. “If we don’t survive this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?” His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough. She dropped her hand. He took a deep breath. Kaz had said he didn’t want her prayers and she wouldn’t speak them, but she wished him safe nonetheless. She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it.

I have no passion for groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase which has followed me about like a faithful dog wherever I have moved – old chairs, old streets, squares where I have sunned myself, my old school – have I not enough, without your Mountains? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I not know, that the Mind will make friends of any thing.’ A mind that can ‘make friends of any thing’ – I thought of that often during the war.

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If tomorrow they tell you you are to make no more water-pipes and saucepans but are to make steel helmets and machine-guns, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Woman at the counter and woman in the office. If tomorrow they tell you you are to fill shells and assemble telescopic sights for snipers' rifles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Research worker in the laboratory. If tomorrow they tell you you are to invent a new death for the old life, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Priest in the pulpit. If tomorrow they tell you you are to bless murder and declare war holy, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Pilot in your aeroplane. If tomorrow they tell you you are to carry bombs over the cities, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Man of the village and man of the town. If tomorrow they come and give you your call-up papers, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, mother in Vancouver and in London, you on the Hwangho and on the Mississippi, you in Naples and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all parts of the earth, mothers of the world, if tomorrow they tell you you are to bear new soldiers for new battles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! For if you do not say NO - if YOU do not say no - mothers, then: then! In the bustling hazy harbour towns the big ships will fall silent as corpses against the dead deserted quay walls, their once shimmering bodies overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, smelling of graveyards and rotten fish. The trams will lie like senseless glass-eyed cages beside the twisted steel skeleton of wires and track. The sunny juicy vine will rot on decaying hillsides, rice will dry in the withered earth, potatoes will freeze in the unploughed land and cows will stick their death-still legs into the air like overturned chairs. In the fields beside rusted ploughs the corn will be flattened like a beaten army. Then the last human creature, with mangled entrails and infected lungs, will wander around, unanswered and lonely, under the poisonous glowing sun, among the immense mass graves and devastated cities. The last human creature, withered, mad, cursing, accusing - and the terrible accusation: WHY? will die unheard on the plains, drift through the ruins, seep into the rubble of churches, fall into pools of blood, unheard, unanswered, the last animal scream of the last human animal - All this will happen tomorrow, tomorrow, perhaps, perhaps even tonight, perhaps tonight, if - if - You do not say NO.

Grated potato was added to the crepe batter, creating a thick and chewy Crepe Alsacienne! Yukihira realized this was meant as a wrap for the ingredients... ... and that spurred his idea to mix cheese, sliced potato and sardines together to make a crispy Galette de Pomme as a garnish to the dish! Look what that does to the dish! It gives it contrasting textures of crispy and chewy, along with the invigorating saltiness of seafood, none of which are present in the traditional recipe! *Galette de Pomme is a lightly fried cake of julienned potatoes.*

Back in the inhospitable hallway again, walking toward a room where Mortenson was scheduled to brief top military planners, he wondered how the distance that he felt in the Pentagon affected the decisions made in the building. How would his feelings about the conduct of war change if everything he'd just seen, the boys who had lost their potato salesman father, the girls with the blowing-over blackboard, and all the wounded attempting to walk the streets of Kabul with pieces of limbs the land mines and cluster-bombs had left them, were just numbers on a laptop screen?

I did it again, Robert Childan informed himself. Impossible to avoid the topic. Because it's everywhere, in a book I happen to pick up or a record collection, in these bone napkin rings -- loot piled up by the conquerors. Pillage from my people. Face facts. I'm trying to pretend that the Japanese and I are alike. But observe: even when I burst out as to my gratification that they won the war, that my nation is lost -- there's still no common ground. What words mean to me is a sharp contrast vis-à-vis them. Their brains are different. Souls likewise. Witness them drinking from English bone china cups, eating with U.S. silver, listening to Negro style of music. It's all on the surface. Advantage of wealth and power makes this available to them, but it's ersatz as the day is long. Even the I Ching, which they've forced down our throats; it's Chinese. Borrowed from way back when. Whom are they fooling? Themselves? Pilfer customs right and left, wear, eat, talk, walk, as for instance consuming with gusto baked potato served with sour cream and chives, old-fashioned American dish added to their haul. But nobody fooled, I can tell you; me least of all.

On 20 November, front-line troops got 500 grams of bread per day, factory workers received 250, and everyone else 125 (that is, two slices). ‘Twigs were collected and stewed,’ records an historian of the siege. ‘Peat shavings, cottonseed cake, bonemeal was pressed into use. Pine sawdust was processed and added to the bread. Mouldy grain was dredged from sunken barges and scraped out of the holds of ships. Soon Leningrad bread was containing 10% cottonseed cake that had been processed to remove poisons. Household pets, shoe leather, fir bark and insects were consumed, as was wallpaper paste which was reputed to be made with potato flour. Guinea pigs, white mice and rabbits were saved from vivisection in the city’s laboratories for a more immediately practical fate. ‘Today it is so simple to die,’ wrote one resident, Yelena Skryabina, in her diary. ‘You just begin to lose interest, then you lie on your bed and you never get up again. Yet some people were willing to go to any lengths in order to survive: 226 people were arrested for cannibalism during the siege. ‘Human meat is being sold in the markets,’ concluded one secret NKVD report, ‘while in the cemeteries bodies pile up like carcasses, without coffins.

Besides that, our potatoes have contracted such strange diseases that one out of every two buckets of pommes de terre winds up in the garbage. We entertain ourselves by trying to figure out which disease they’ve got, and we’ve reached the conclusion that they suffer from cancer, smallpox and measles. Honestly, being in hiding during the fourth year of the war is no picnic. If only the whole stinking mess were over!

free.” On the edge of town, Fitzgerald saw a sight “that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] in its fist.II The other distorted forms lay where they had fallen, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two. He had fought alone and, like many others that night, he had died alone. “I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did.”34

I boiled potatoes until they were hot and fluffy... ... and then kneaded in diced mushrooms, which are fibrous and soak up fat easily. Then I wrapped the whole mixture up in thick-cut bacon and set it to roast! The heat caused the fat to render out of the bacon, leaving its crispy and crunchy... ... while the potatoes soaked up every last drop of the savory pork fat! Crispy on the outside... ... juicy on the inside. Together they create a savory and sensual taste experience!

Despite shared language, ethnicity, and culture, alliances nurtured deep, long-standing hostilities toward one another, the original source of which was often unknown. They had always been enemies, and so they remained enemies. Indeed, hostility between alliances defined the natives’ lives. If covered by a glass roof, the valley would’ve been a terrarium of human conflict, an ecosystem fueled by sunshine, river water, pigs, sweet potatoes, and war among neighbors. Their ancestors told them that waging war was a moral obligation and a necessity of life. Men said, “If there is no war, we will die.” War’s permanence was even part of the language. If a man said “our war,” he structured the phrase the same way he’d describe an irrevocable fact. If he spoke of a possession such as “our wood,” he used different parts of speech. The meaning was clear: ownership of wood might change, but wars were forever. When compared with the causes of World War II, the motives underlying native wars were difficult for outsiders to grasp. They didn’t fight for land, wealth, or power. Neither side sought to repel or conquer a foreign people, to protect a way of life, or to change their enemies’ beliefs, which both sides already shared. Neither side considered war a necessary evil, a failure of diplomacy, or an interruption of a desired peace. Peace wasn’t waiting on the far side of war. There was no far side. War moved through different phases in the valley. It ebbed and flowed. But it never ended. A lifetime of war was an inheritance every child could count on.

He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of butter and salt and onions. I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling.

It goes without saying that the meat is tender... ... but the generous helping of minced onions on top just whets the appetite further! And this full-bodied flavor... red wine? After searing the steak, he must have added red wine to the remaining meat juices and caramelized the onions in the resulting sauce!" "Not only that, the sauce was beautifully thickened with potato starch! It wraps around both the meat and the rice so perfectly, it's amazing!" "And tying it all together is the flavor of scorched soy sauce! Even char was used as a seasoning to deepen the flavor! He made this special, unforgettable sauce building upon the onions that are so critical to a true Chaliapin Steak!" "Both the meat and the sauce have strong, solid flavors... yet the more I eat, the hungrier I get. In fact, it almost feels like I could eat this bowl endlessly! Why? Is there some other secret hidden in this dish?" "Yep! That trick is in the rice. I added in some handmade pickled-plum mix to it. It's crisp plum-seasoned rice!" "Aha! So that's it! That brisk aftertaste that encourages another bite is pickled plum!" The tender, fragrant steak... the beautifully thickened, perfect sauce... and the fresh, tartly flavored plum-seasoned rice.

For days neither provisions for the men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages, searching for potatoes, but found few even of these. Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled—if any remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations. The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness.

I look out of the window; – beyond the picture of the sunlit street appears a range of hills, distant and light; it changes to a clear day in autumn, and I sit by the fire with Kat and Albert and eat potatoes baked in their skins. But I do not want to think of that, I sweep it away. The room shall speak, it must catch me up and hold me, I want to feel that I belong here, I want to hearken and know when I go back to the front that the war will sink down, be drowned utterly in the great home-coming tide, know that it will then be past for ever, and not gnaw us continually, that it will have none but an outward power over us.

In World War II, Japanese soldiers killed the aborigines on sight. But the Negritos got their revenge and terrorized any Japanese soldier who entered their rain forest. One of their tactics was to setup a fake camp in the path of a Japanese patrol. When the soldiers discovered the abandoned village, it seemed as if the Negritos had been surprised in the middle of a meal and fled. The Negritos left large bowls of delicious smelling boiled potatoes behind. The starving Japanese soldiers would glut themselves on the mouth-watering food. Then they would die. The food was really poisonous tubers that only looked and tasted like potatoes.

Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese! Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!" VICHYSSOISE Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled. Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917. "Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!" "The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter! Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance. AAAH! It's immensely satisfying!" "I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux." "Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles. What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!

Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian's greasy hair was thick with potatoes, carrots, gravy, and chunks of beef. His companion had less stew in his hair, but an equally large lump was rising fast, and Brandark flipped his improvised club into the air, caught it in proper dipping position, and filled it once more from the pot without even glancing at them. He raised the ladle to his nose, inhaled deeply, and glanced at the cook with an impudent twitch of his ears. "Smells delicious," he said while the laughter started up all around the fire. "I imagine a bellyful of this should help a hungry man sleep. Why, just look what a single ladle of it did for Shergahn!

I, like, added curry spices to the tomatoes and then firmed it with sodium alginate. Then there's the mousse I made with powdered, freeze-dried foie gras blended with turmeric. The white dollop in the middle is a puree of potatoes and six different types of cheese. Once your mouth has thoroughly cooled from those items, you should totally try the piecrust arches. Oh! I flash froze it first, so it should have a very light, fluffy texture. I kneaded coriander and a few other select spices into the pie dough. It'll cleanse your palate and give your tongue a break. This dish is all about "Thermal Sense," y'know. Molecular gastronomy teaches about the various contrasting temperature sensations foods and spices have. I took those theories and put them together into a single dish.

These domestic accounts—which take up a lot of the nearly six-hundred-page compilation of his travel, war, and domestic diaries published in 2009—stand out in his work as records of something almost antithetical to the subjects of a political writer: places in which nothing was seriously wrong and no conflicts raged. The minor troubles—a jackdaw hanging around the chicken coops, potatoes rotted by frost, goats terrified by thunder, birds eating the strawberries, greenfly on the roses, and lots of slugs—worked against the gardener’s agenda but not against any law of nature or morality. The majority of his entries are concerned with his own activity with his domesticated plants and animals, but he makes notes as well on the agricultural fields beyond and the wild things around him. Occasional speculations and small experiments are also recorded.

Some of you from outside the South may be wondering why we’re emphasizing this irrefutable historical fact that everyone should know so strongly already. Well, it’s because there has been an unfortunate tendency down here to deflect as much attention as possible away from the atrocities that the South was responsible for before, during, and after the war, and to focus on the glory, the courage, and all that kind of shit instead. We name roads, schools, and parks after Confederate leaders. We erect statues in their honor. We revere them and honor them, all while ignoring the gigantic racist elephant in the room. 4 Look, it ain’t nothin’ wrong with glory and courage, and it’s completely legitimate to acknowledge the military greatness of some of the Confederacy’s leaders, but what’s not okay is to do so without also acknowledging their complicity in and tacit acceptance of one of the single most reprehensible and inhumane practices in human history. 5 It’s disingenuous. It’s cheap. It’s cowardly. We gotta cut that shit out. So, yes, we fought a war for slavery, and because sometimes the universe gets some shit right (waterfalls, potatoes, Scarlett Johansson), we lost. Which is another thing we apparently need to remind some of our fellow Southerners of. Not only did we fight a war for slavery, but we got our asses whupped. Until we can all agree to accept this and act accordingly, we’re never going to be able to move on. It’s nothing to be proud of, y’all—it really ain’t. We fought and we lost. But our defeat was a great victory for morality and for the country as a whole. Southerners tend to act as if the Civil War isn’t history but a scientific theory whose results can be disproven if discussed enough. It’s not. We lost. Get over it.

See, for the Kuri Kinton chestnuts, I used prepackaged boiled sweet potatoes! I simmered them in some orange juice and then mashed them until they were smooth. Normal Kuri Kinton use gardenia fruit to give the chestnuts an orange color, but I swapped those out for sweet potatoes and orange juice... ... making mine more of a Joke Kuri Kinton! The rolled omelet is made of egg and Hanpen fish cakes I found near the Oden ! I blended it all in a food processor with some salt and sugar before cooking it in an omelet pan. Red-and-White Salad! Seasoning regular salad veggies with salt, sugar and vinegar turns them into a Red-and-White Salad! Salting the veggies ahead of time draws out moisture, making them crispier and allowing them to soak up more sweet vinegar. Checkered Prosciutto Rolls! I just wrapped some snack-cup precut carrot and daikon sticks in prosciutto strips and voilà! A little honey and mustard dabbed inside the prosciutto works as a glue to hold it all together.

You never asked. How would I like you to kill it? You are a captain in the Red Army, for goodness’ sake. What do they teach you there?” “How to kill human beings. Not mice.” She barely touched her food. “Well, throw a grenade at it. Use your rifle. I don’t know. But do something.” Alexander shook his head. “You went out into the streets of Leningrad while the Germans were throwing five-hundred-kilo bombs that blew arms and legs off the women standing ahead of you in line, you stood fearless in front of cannibals, you jumped off a moving train to go and find your brother, but you are afraid of mice?” “Now you got it,” Tatiana said defiantly. “It doesn’t make sense,” Alexander said. “If a person is fearless in the big things—” “You’re wrong. Again. Are you done with your questions? Anything else you want to ask? Or add?” “Just one thing.” Alexander kept his face serious. “It looks like,” he said slowly, his voice calm, “we’ve found three uses for that too-high potato countertop I built yesterday.” And he burst out laughing. “Go ahead, laugh,” Tatiana said. “Go ahead. I’m here for your amusement.” Her eyes twinkled. Putting his own plate on the bench, Alexander took the plate out of her hands and brought her to him to stand between his legs. Reluctantly she came. “Tania, do you have any idea how funny you are?” He kissed her chest, looking up at her. “I adore you.” “If you really adored me,” she said, trying to twist herself out of his arms, unsuccessfully, “you wouldn’t be sitting here idly flirting when you could be militarizing that cabin.” Alexander stood up. “Just to point out,” he said, “it’s not called flirting once you’ve made love to the girl.” After Alexander went inside, a smiling Tatiana sat on the bench and finished her food. In a few minutes he emerged from the cabin holding his rifle in one hand, his pistol in the other, and a bayonet attachment between his teeth. The dead mouse was swinging at the end of the bayonet. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “How did I do?” Tatiana failed to keep a straight face. “All right, all right,” she said, chortling. “You didn’t have to bring out the spoils of war.” “Ah, but I know you wouldn’t believe in a dead mouse unless you saw it with your own eyes.” “Will you stop quoting me back to me? Shura, you tell me, I will believe it,” said Tatiana. “Now, go on, get out of here with that thing.” “One last question.” “Oh, no,” said Tatiana, covering her face, trying not to laugh. “Do you think this dead mouse is worth the price of a…killed mouse?” “Will you just go?” Tatiana heard his boisterous laughter all the way to the woods and back.

—a slave was owned by a Continental Army soldier who'd been killed in the French and Indian War. The slave looked after the soldier's widow. He did everything, from dawn to dark didn't stop doing what needed to be done. He chopped and hauled the wood, gathered the crops, excavated and built a cabbage house and stowed the cabbages there, stored the pumpkins, buried the apples, turnips, and potatoes in the ground for winter, stacked the rye and wheat in the barn, slaughtered the pig, salted the pork, slaughtered the cow and corned the beef, until one day the widow married him and they had three sons. And those sons married Gouldtown girls whose families reached back to the settlement's origins in the 1600s, families that by the Revolution were all intermarried and thickly intermingled. One or another or all of them, she said, were descendants of the Indian from the large Lenape settlement at Indian Fields who married a Swede—locally Swedes and Finns had superseded the original Dutch settlers—and who had five children with her; one or another or all were descendants of the two mulatto brothers brought from the West Indies on a trading ship that sailed up the river from Greenwich to Bridgeton, where they were indentured to the landowners who had paid their passage and who themselves later paid the passage of two Dutch sisters to come from Holland to become their wives; one or another or all were descendants of the granddaughter of John Fenwick, an English baronet's son, a cavalry officer in Cromwell's Commonwealth army and a member of the Society of Friends who died in New Jersey not that many years after New Cesarea (the province lying between the Hudson and the Delaware that was deeded by the brother of the king of England to two English proprietors) became New Jersey.

Sometimes we ate raw onions like apples, too, I wanted to tell her. Sometimes, the tin foil held shredded chicken petrified in aspic. A fish head to suck on! I was filled with shame and hateful glee: everything I was feeling turned out at the person next to me. I was the one with an uncut cow's tongue uncoiling in the refrigerator of his undergraduate quad, my roommates' Gatorades and half-finished pad Thai keeping a nervous distance. I sliced it thinly, and down it went with horseradish and cold vodka like the worry of a long day sloughing off, those little dots of fat between the cold meet like garlic roasted to paste. I am the one who fried liver. Who brought his own lunch in an old Tupperware to his cubicle in the Conde Nast Building; who accidentally warmed it too long, and now the scent of buckwheat, stewed chicken, and carrots hung like radiation over the floor, few of those inhabitants brought lunch from home, fewer of whom were careless enough to heat it for too long if they did, and none of whom brought a scent bomb in the first place. Fifteen floors below, the storks who staffed the fashion magazines grazed on greens in the Frank Gehry cafeteria. I was the one who ate mashed potatoes and frankfurters for breakfast. Who ate a sandwich for breakfast. Strange? But Americans ate cereal for dinner. Americans ate cereal, period, that oddment. They had a whole thing called 'breakfast for dinner.' And the only reason they were right and I was wrong was that it was their country. The problem with my desire to pass for native was that everything in the tinfoil was so f*****g good. When the world thinks of Soviet food, it thinks of all the wrong things. Though it was due to incompetence rather than ideology, we were local, seasonal, and organic long before Chez Panisse opened its doors. You just had to have it in a home instead of a restaurant, like British cooking after the war, as Orwell wrote. For me, the food also had cooked into it the memory of my grandmother's famine; my grandfather's black-marketeering to get us the 'deficit' goods that, in his view, we deserved no less than the political VIPs; all the family arguments that paused while we filled our mouths and our eyes rolled back in our heads. Food was so valuable that it was a kind of currency - and it was how you showed loved. If, as a person on the cusp of thirty, I wished to find sanity, I had to figure out how to temper this hunger without losing hold of what it fed, how to retain a connection to my past without being consumed by its poison.

cap to scratch his bald head. ‘Well, you won’t miss the veg because I’ll be bringing you some every week now. I’ve always got plenty left over and I’d rather give it to you than see it waste.’ He gave a rumbling laugh. ‘I caught that young Tommy Barton digging potatoes from Percy’s plot this mornin’. Give ’im a cuff round ’is ear but I let him take what he’d dug. Poor little bugger’s only tryin’ to keep his ma from starvin’; ain’t ’is fault ’is old man got banged up for robbin’, is it?’ Tilly Barton, her two sons Tommy and Sam and her husband, lived almost opposite the Pig & Whistle. Mulberry Lane cut across from Bell Lane and ran adjacent to Spitalfields Market, and the folk of the surrounding lanes were like a small community, almost a village in the heart of London’s busy East End. Tilly and her husband had been good customers for Peggy until he lost his job on the Docks. It had come as a shock when he’d been arrested for trying to rob a little corner post office and Peggy hadn’t seen Tilly to talk to since; she’d assumed it was because the woman was feeling ashamed of what her husband had done. ‘No, of course not.’ Peggy smiled at him. A wisp of her honey-blonde hair had fallen across her face, despite all her efforts to sweep it up under a little white cap she wore for cooking. ‘I didn’t realise Tilly Barton was in such trouble. I’ll take her a pie over later – she won’t be offended, will she?’ ‘No one in their right mind would be offended by you, Peggy love.’ ‘Thank you, Jim. Would you like a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie?’ ‘Don’t mind a slice of that pie, but I’ll take it for my docky down the allotment if that’s all right?’ Peggy assured him it was and wrapped a generous slice of her freshly cooked pie in greaseproof paper. He took it and left with a smile and a promise to see her next week just as her husband entered the kitchen. ‘Who was that?’ Laurence asked as he saw the back of Jim walking away. ‘Jim Stillman, he brought the last of the stuff from Percy’s allotment.’ Peggy’s eyes brimmed and Laurence frowned. ‘I don’t know what you’re upset for, Peggy. Percy was well over eighty. He’d had a good life – and it wasn’t even as if he was your father…’ ‘I know. He was a lot older than Mum but…Percy was a good stepfather to me, and wonderful to Mum when she was so ill after we lost Walter.’ Peggy’s voice faltered, because it still hurt her that her younger brother had died in the Great War at the tender age of seventeen. The news had almost destroyed their mother and Peggy thought of those dark days as the worst of her

After all,” she said, her eyes meeting his, “it’s not as though you lack sufficient charm to woo ladies. And you’re certainly handsome enough, in your own way.” She bent her head again. “Oh, stop looking s smug. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts. Privateering was not your only profitable course of action. You might have married, if you’d wished to.” “Ah, but there’s the snag, you see. I didn’t wish to.” She picked up a brush and tapped it against her palette. “No, you didn’t. You wished to be at sea. You wished to go adventuring, to seize sixty ships in the name of the Crown and pursue countless women on four continents. That’s why you sold your land, Mr. Grayson. Because it’s what you wanted to do. The profit was incidental.” Gray tugged at the cuff of his coat sleeve. It unnerved him, how easily she stared down these truths he’d avoided looking in the eye for years. So now he was worse than a thief. He was a selfish, lying thief. And still she sat with him, flirted with him, called him “charming” and “handsome enough.” How much darkness did the girl need to uncover before she finally turned away? “And what about you, Miss Turner?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Why are you here, bound for the West Indies to work as a governess? You, too, might have married. You come from quality; so much is clear. And even if you’d no dowry, sweetheart…” He waited for her to look up. “Yours is the kind of beauty that brings men to their knees.” She gave a dismissive wave of her paintbrush. Still, her cheeks darkened, and she dabbed her brow with the back of her wrist. “Now, don’t act missish. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts.” He leaned back in his chair. “So why haven’t you married?” “I explained to you yesterday why marriage was no longer an option for me. I was compromised.” Gray folded his hands on his chest. “Ah, yes. The French painting master. What was his name? Germaine?” “Gervais.” She sighed dramatically. “Ah, but the pleasure he showed me was worth any cost. I’d never felt so alive as I did in his arms. Every moment we shared was a minute stolen from paradise.” Gray huffed and kicked the table leg. The girl was trying to make him jealous. And damn, if it wasn’t working. Why should some oily schoolgirl’s tutor enjoy the pleasures Gray was denied? He hadn’t aided the war effort just so England’s most beautiful miss could lift her skirts for a bloody Frenchman. She began mixing pigment with oil on her palette. “Once, he pulled me into the larder, and we had a feverish tryst among the bins of potatoes and turnips. He held me up against the shelves and we-“ “May I read my book now?” Lord, he couldn’t take much more of this. She smiled and reached for another brush. “If you wish.” Gray opened his book and stared at it, unable to muster the concentration to read. Every so often, he turned a page. Vivid, erotic images filled his mind, but all the blood drained to his groin.

They spent three more long days in the whitened mountain ash trees on the whitened bay. Tatiana baked pies in Nellie’s big kitchen. Alexander read all the papers and magazines from stem to stern and talked post-war politics to Tatiana and Jimmy, and even to indifferent Nellie. In Nellie’s potato fields, Alexander built snowmen for Anthony. After the pies were in the oven, Tatiana came out of the house and saw six snowmen arrayed like soldiers from big to little. She tutted, rolled her eyes and dragged Anthony away to fall down and make angels in the snow instead. They made thirty of them, all in a row, arrayed like soldiers. On the third night of winter, Anthony was in their bed restfully asleep, and they were wide awake. Alexander was rubbing her bare buttocks under her gown. The only window in their room was blizzarded over. She assumed the blue moon was shining beyond. His hands were becoming very insistent. Alexander moved one of the blankets onto the floor, silently; moved her onto the blanket, silently; laid her flat onto her stomach, silently, and made love to her in stealth like they were doughboys on the ground, crawling to the frontline, his belly to her back, keeping her in a straight line, completely covering her tiny frame with his body, clasping her wrists above her head with one hand. As he confined her, he was kissing her shoulders, and the back of her neck, and her jawline, and when she turned her face to him, he kissed her lips, his free hand roaming over her legs and ribs while he moved deep and slow! amazing enough by itself, but even more amazingly he turned her to him to finish, still restraining her arms above her head, and even made a brief noise not just a raw exhale at the feverish end...and then they lay still, under the blankets, and Tatiana started to cry underneath him, and he said shh, shh, come on, but didn’t instantly move off her, like usual. “I’m so afraid,” she whispered. “Of what?” “Of everything. Of you.” He said nothing. She said, “So you want to get the heck out of here?” “Oh, God. I thought you’d never ask.” “Where do you think you’re going?” Jimmy asked when he saw them packing up the next morning. “We’re leaving,” Alexander replied. “Well, you know what they say,” Jim said. “Man proposes and God disposes. The bridge over Deer Isle is iced over. Hasn’t been plowed in weeks and won’t be. Nowhere to go until the snow melts.” “And when do you think that might be?” “April,” Jimmy said, and both he and Nellie laughed. Jimmy hugged her with his one good arm and Nellie, gazing brightly at him, didn’t look as if she cared that he had just the one. Tatiana and Alexander glanced at each other. April! He said to Jim, “You know what, we’ll take our chances.” Tatiana started to speak up, started to say, “Maybe they’re right—” and Alexander fixed her with such a stare that she instantly shut up, ashamed of questioning him in front of other people, and hurried on with the packing. They said goodbye to a regretful Jimmy and Nellie, said goodbye to Stonington and took their Nomad Deluxe across Deer Isle onto the mainland. In this one instant, man disposed. The bridge had been kept clear by the snow crews on Deer Isle. Because if the bridge was iced over, no one could get any produce shipments to the people in Stonington. “What a country,” said Alexander, as he drove out onto the mainland and south.

Prisoners were also poorly fed. Although they were given three meals a day, the food was unappetizing. In the morning, they were only given a coffee-like brew which consisted of boiled water with a grain-based coffee substitute. Lunch was a liter of soup which consisted of potatoes and rutabagas along with rye flour and some groats.  Supper was 300 grams of black bread along with some sausage or other spread like cheese, margarine or marmalade. The bread was also supposed to last until morning, but the prisoners were so famished they usually ate the whole portion of bread at one sitting.

Two days after the fighting had subsided, the older Gagarin boys, Valentin and Yuri, sneaked into the woods to see what had happened. ‘We saw a Russian colonel, badly wounded but still breathing after lying where he fell for two days and nights,’ Valentin explains. ‘The German officers went to where he was lying, in a bush, and he pretended to be blind. Some high-ranking officers tried to ask him questions, and he replied that he couldn’t hear them very well, and asked them to lean down closer. So they came closer and bent right over him, and then he blew a grenade he’d hidden behind his back. No one survived.’ Valentin remembers Yuri’s rapid transformation after this from a grinning little imp to a serious-minded boy, going down into the cellar to find bread, potatoes, milk and vegetables, and distributing them to refugees from other districts who were trudging through the village to escape the Germans. ‘He smiled less frequently in those years, even though he was by nature a very happy child. I remember he seldom cried out at pain, or about all the terrible things around us. I think he only cried if his self-respect was hurt . . . Many of the traits of character that suited him in later years as a pilot and cosmonaut all developed around that time, during the war.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel/memoir by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer that is every bit as charming as its title, and Island at War, a Masterpiece Theatre TV miniseries. In

My father and brothers did the best they could to keep us fed as the violence of the war escalated around us. They brought us potatoes, beans and sometimes apples. Packs of wild dogs, hungry and dangerous, roamed the streets at night. I guessed that sometimes the dogs became meat for our stew pot. We did not ask where food came from when Papa or one of my brothers brought home a chunk of meat. I didn’t allow myself to think of what I was eating or anticipate what the evening meal might be made of.

In the years directly following World War II—the time when modern childhood began in earnest—the toy boom began in earnest too. In 1940, toy sales were a modest $ 84 million; by 1960, they had reached $ 1.25 billion. Many classic children’s toys were invented during this era, including Silly Putty (1950) and Mr. Potato Head (1952). And the pickings back then were paltry compared to today, when playrooms as well stocked as Emily’s are increasingly common. In Parenting, Inc. (2008), Pamela Paul writes that toy industry sales “for babies between birth and age two alone” were over $ 700 million annually. According to the Toy Industry Association, domestic sales of kids’ toys were $ 21.2 billion in 2011, a figure that didn’t include video games. Such oceans of plenty have had unintended consequences. In Huck’s Raft, Steven Mintz notes that toys before the twentieth century were primarily social in nature—jump ropes, marbles, kites, balls. “Modern manufactured toys,” on the other hand, “implied a solitariness that was not a part of childhood before the twentieth century.” He’s thinking of Crayons, for instance, introduced in 1903. Or Tinker Toys (1914), Lincoln Logs (1916), or Legos (1932).

Rats were eagerly eaten, and hard cabbage-stalk, with raw potato-peelings, which had been thrown into the sewers, was used for food.

Bread made of inferior flour, which was occasionally sour, was issued. The meat was rusty bacon or beef-neck. Twice in one year we had good cuts of beef, but it was so far decayed as to be offensive. Occasionally we had a few worm-eaten peas, and twice I saw some small potatoes . . . . Rats were caught in and about the sinks, and sold freely. The slop-barrels were raked, and bread-crusts were fished out, to be dried in the sun and eaten.

The importance of the pie - once the 'meat and potatoes' of the English - began to slip with the increased cultivation of the actual potato in the nineteenth century. As the nineteenth became the twentieth century, social changes pushed the pie further into decline. The 'great pies' had their last glorious days in the English manor houses of the Edwardian era, before the domestic classes left to fight the First World War.

Arden sighed and looked at the window. “I don’t know many people who care for it,” he said. “What about potato guns?” Joseph asked. “You ever make one when you were a kid, fill it with hairspray and shoot at the neighbor’s dog?” “Nope,” Buster said, “sorry.” He could feel the article slipping away from him, imagined going on the Internet and fabricating the entire thing. “And the war?” asked David. “I’m not a fan,” Buster replied. He looked down at his shoes, black leather sneakers with complicated stitching, his toes already slightly numb inside of them. He thought about reaching over Joseph, pushing open the door, and jumping out.

The jackapples were long and red and oddly pointed at one end. One or two had been cut open as Joe dug them up, showing flesh which looked tropically pink in the sun. The boy staggered a little under the weight of the box. "Watch your step," called Joe. "Don't drop 'em. They'll bruise." "But these are just potatoes." "Aye," said Joe, without taking his eyes from the vegetable cutter. "I thought you said they were apples, or something." "Jacks. Spuds. Taters. Jackapples. Poms de Tair." "Don't look like much to me," said Jay. Joe shook his head and began to feed the roots into the vegetable cutter. Their scent was sweetish, like papaya. "I brought seeds for these home from South America after the war," he said. "Grew 'em right here in my back garden. Took me five years just to get the soil right. If you want roasters, you grow King Edwards. If you want salads, it's your Charlottes or your Jerseys. If it's chippers you're after, then it's your Maris Piper. But these..." He reached down to pick one up, rubbing the blackened ball of his thumb lovingly across the pinkish skin. "Older than New York, so old it doesn't even have an English name. Seed more precious than powdered gold. These aren't just potatoes, lad." He shook his head again, his eyes brimful of laughter under the thick gray brows. "These are me Specials." Jay watched him cautiously. "So what are you making?" he asked at last. Joe tossed the last jackapple into the cutter and grinned. "Wine, lad. Wine.

For example, the Chinese invented gunpowder. But for some reason these perennial warriors and kung-fu fighters weren’t savvy enough to use their invention as a weapon of war. The ancient Indians are widely credited with inventing the numerical system we currently use. But they certainly didn’t invent calculus like Newton and Leibniz did. Most uncomfortable for egalitarians and their ilk is that there are vast landmasses—sometimes entire continents—where the indigenous inhabitants have invented virtually nothing. Sub-Saharan Africans are not known for contributing much to rocket science, and black Americans are so underrepresented as inventors that everyone has heard a gorillion times about the mulatto who improved blood-storage methods and George Washington Carver’s wondrous dalliances with the magical peanut. The so-called “Native Americans” are credited with inventing the spinning top, which somehow proved incapable of defending them against the white man and his guns. And Australia’s aborigines? Well, let’s not talk about them, because they’d be embarrassed. Peruvians can take pride in developing the art of potato cultivation. And I’ve already covered the Mexicans and their nachos.

Realistically speaking, every teenaged girl spends a lot of time convinced that something is deeply, profoundly wrong with her, and I was no exception. All the world hates a girl, in special and vicious ways that goes way beyond even the mountain of shit we shovel onto young dudes. They get toxic masculinity and we get “you throw like a girl” and “scream like a girl” and “you’re such a pretty girl.” Mansplaining and creepers on BART and whistling out of car windows. I internalized the full measure of girl-hating, hating the sound of my recorded voice, the sight of my photographed face, my own body in the mirror. I hated my handwriting, the loopy letters I’d taught myself to draw when we first moved to America and I’d had to unlearn Russian and figure out the strange English glyphs all the perfect girls could write perfectly. I hated my hair and the way I walked. I hated my tits and I hated my bras. I hated my mother and I hated all the girls in the world, more than anything. Even more than boys. I don’t believe I was special in this regard. There’s a lot of self-hating girls out there in the world. We’re the secret, seething, silent majority. Some starve. Some cut. Some try to screw their way to happiness. Me, I idolized strong, powerful women who seemed to have risen above it all. Never mind that they were drunks or sadists or war criminals. They were leaning in, doin’ it for themselves, and that was what counted. Compared to being trapped in girlhood, alcoholism and war crimes were small potatoes. (less)

in this society there is no one else you can count on,” said Chandler, the historian. “They don’t think a society really exists.” That tendency proved useful for most of Cambodia’s history, as the nation lived through successive wars with its neighbors. Most Cambodians focused only on family and village life. These were their only havens as foreign troops ranged over the nation and government leaders schemed and connived for their own accounts. Egoism was of undeniable value during the Khmer Rouge era. To survive Cambodians had to behave as Kok Chuum, the Dang Run village chief, did. “I ate wild potatoes I found in the woods,” he said. “I did it secretly. I told no one.” Presumably, back then, others near him were starving to death, as workers did all over the nation. But in the twenty-first century individualism, this shared personality trait, ensured that Cambodians would remain hungry and illiterate. By and large they could not, would not, stand up and advocate for themselves.   Imagine

Our neighbor, Hugo du Toit, was a very handsome Afrikaner, who, with his two sisters, was a close friend of Louis Botha, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, and also a close friend of General Jan Christiaan Smuts, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924. He became a South African military leader during World War II. Although some accuse Smuts of having started apartheid, he later stood against it and was a force behind the founding of the United Nations. He is still considered one of the most eminent Afrikaners ever…. At his expansive farm house, Hugo had autographed photos of both men on his study wall. Parties were frequently held at my grandparents’ home and the thought of roasted turkeys and potatoes which Cherie had prepared, brings back warm memories of a delightful era, now lost forever.” The Colonial History of South Africa For many years South Africa was occupied primarily by Dutch farmers known as Boers who had first arrived in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck established the Dutch East India Company and later by British settlers who arrived in the Cape colony after the Napoleonic wars in the 1820’s, on board the sailing ships the Nautilus and the Chapman. For the most part the two got along like oil and water. After 1806, some of the Dutch-speaking settlers left the Cape Colony and trekked into the interior where they established the Boer Republics. There were many skirmishes between them, as well as with the native tribes. In 1877 after the First Boer War between the Dutch speaking farmers and the English, the Transvaal Boer republic was seized by Britain. Hostilities continued until the Second Boer War erupted in October of 1899, costing the British 22,000 lives. The Dutch speaking farmers, now called Afrikaners, lost 7,000 men and having been overrun by the English acknowledged British sovereignty by signing the peace agreement, known as the “Treaty of Vereeniging,” on May 31, 1902. Although this thumbnail sketch of South African history leaves much unsaid, the colonial lifestyle continued on for the privileged white ruling class until the white, pro-apartheid National Party, was peacefully ousted when the African National Congress won a special national election. Nelson Mandela was elected as the first black president on May 9, 1994. On May 10, 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as The Republic of South Africa's new freely elected President with Thabo Mbeki and F.W. De Klerk as his vice-presidents.

Salmon's crew was extremely lucky to be alive. A very heavy depth charging had dished in the pressure hull, knocked one engine off the base plate, severely damaged all radio and radar equipment, and caused major structural damage throughout the ship. Exhausted and forced to the surface by three escort vessels, she took them on with the deck gun, picking her way in and out of rain squalls. At the peak of the gunfight, a box of galley stores was inadvertently passed topside as ammunition. Dick claimed that on a close pass by one of the escorts, the gun crew threw potatoes at the enemy, using oranges for tracers. I doubt this. We never had oranges that late in the patrol.

Men are not ciphers, and hearts, even Communist hearts, are not potatoes, and Americans would do well to remember it.

Need a hand?” Detective McCarl asked with a sly grin. “Even though I’ve just lost my hand and I’m in a significant amount of pain, I have to admire how funny that joke was,

but McCarl jumped into the air and fired the rocket launcher down at the ground to launch himself over the gaps; in an epic move he called a rocket jump.

McCarl pulled out his bazooka and fired some TNT at the giant potato, but the potato was so big that the explosion barely made a dent in it. “What are we going to do now?” asked McAlex.

Okay, okay. But you’d better not make it stupid. I promise, Carl. It won’t be stupid at all. SMASH! Suddenly two horses with wings flew through the window, and both McAlex and McCarl jumped onto their backs.

Oh no,” said McAlex. “We were winning the fight, but now we’re not winning the fight anymore! What shall we do?

I don’t know how he survived last time, but this time I’m going to put an end to him once and for all.

An explosion exploded.

I’ve heard there’s a fantastic sale this weekend at Cake World, but I’m not going to mention it because I’m a serious detective and all I think about is solving crimes, not about the fact that all cakes at Cake World are half price this weekend. And I especially don’t think about the fact that once all the cakes are gone, they’re gone. Also, the thought that chocolate cakes are not included never even crosses my mind.

Underneath the mask was a face that Carl knew all too well. It was Chief Porkins.

Listen, Alex, the title sounds cool, and that’s the most important thing. If you have a cool title, people will buy the book.

Now we need to bring it to a printers and get it turned into a proper book. Then we can sell it and make our fortune. If I make enough emeralds, maybe I can build a real-life city made from potato. And maybe I can build a real-life city made from cake! Don’t be ridiculous, Alex.

I’ve got your ID card right here,” said McCarl, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a bazooka.

Because he’s a secret bag guy.

Oink,” whimpered Spidroth the pig.

Shove it up your cakehole, Chief,” growled Detective McCarl.

Shouldn’t an old man like you be retired by now?” “Shouldn’t a young idiot like you still be in school?” growled Detective Carl McCarl.

We Called Him Monsieur R. Dovid Aaron Neuman currently lives with his family in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He was interviewed in November, 2013, and shared the following remarkable story which happened during the war. “...In the midst of all this chaos and upheaval, my family was forced to split up.... I was sent to an orphanage in Marseilles. The orphanage housed some forty or maybe fifty children, many of them as young as three and four years old. Some of them knew that their parents had been killed; others didn’t know what became of them. Often, you would hear children crying, calling out for their parents who were not there to answer. As the days wore on, the situation grew more and more desperate, and food became more and more scarce. Many a day we went hungry. “And then, in the beginning of the summer of 1941, a man came to the rescue. We did not know his name; we just called him “Monsieur,” which is French for “Mister.” Every day, Monsieur would arrive with bags of bread—the long French baguettes—and tuna or sardines, sometimes potatoes as well. He would stay until every child had eaten. Some of the kids were so despondent that they didn’t want to eat. He used to put those children on his lap, tell them a story, sing to them, and feed them by hand. He made sure everyone was fed. With some of the kids, he’d sit next to them on the floor and cajole them to eat, even feeding them with a spoon, if need be. He was like a father to these sad little children. He knew every child by name, even though we didn’t know his. We loved him and looked forward to his coming. Monsieur came back day after day for several weeks. And I would say that many of the children who lived in the orphanage at that time owe their lives to him. If not for him, I, for one, wouldn’t be here. Eventually the war ended, and I was reunited with my family. We left Europe and began our lives anew. In 1957, I came to live in New York, and that’s when my uncle suggested that I meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Of course I agreed and scheduled a time for an audience with the Rebbe’s secretary. At the appointed date, I came to the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway and sat down to wait. I read some Psalms and watched the parade of men and women from all walks of life who had come to see the Rebbe. Finally, I was told it was my turn, and I walked into the Rebbe’s office. He was smiling, and immediately greeted me: “Dos iz Dovidele!—It’s Dovidele!” I thought, “How does he know my name?” And then I nearly fainted. I was looking at Monsieur. The Rebbe was Monsieur! And he had recognized me before I had recognized him.

Oh, I didn’t know that. I wish I could be a great writer like you, Carl. Well, we can’t all be geniuses.

I will make use of every last resource of my empire; it possesses even more than my enemies yet think. But even if Divine Providence decrees that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then after having exhausted all the means in my power I will grow my beard down to here’ (he pointed his hand to his chest) ‘and will go off and eat potatoes with the very last of my peasants rather than sign a peace which would shame my fatherland and that dear nation whose sacrifices for me I know how to appreciate…Napoleon or me, I or him, we cannot both rule at the same time; I have learned to understand him and he will not deceive me.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Okay, sorry, I’ll try again… “I’m sorry to hear that,” said McAlex. “Lots of sad things have happened to me too. Once I saw a puppy crying, and I asked him why he was crying, and he said that he was allergic to cake, then I started crying too. Then all the other puppies in town started to cry, and that made all the people in town cry. There was so much crying that the town began to flood, and we all had to escape on boats, but because we kept crying, the water kept getting bigger and bigger until it was an entire ocean. And that ocean’s name… was Detective Alex McAlex. Yes, I was that ocean.

Carting potatoes, of which we have a fine crop, I was continually struck by the resemblance which the average large potato bears to General de Gaulle, though the potato is, of course, the more malleable of the two.

Talk about making a splash,” grinned McCarl, putting on his sunglasses.

You like potato and I like potahto. You like tomato and I like tomahto. You like al-Queda and I like al-Quida. al-Queda, al-Quida, al-Queda, al-Quida, let's call the holy war off.

once dropped a piece of cake on a puppy’s head, and it was so heavy that the puppy had to go to the hospital. Thankfully he was okay, but after that, he could never eat cake ever again. And that puppy’s name… was Detective Alex McAlex. Yes, I was that puppy.

He said you were rolling around in your cave, singing about sheep bones. Badly. At one point you began dodging non-existent potatoes.

Keep the change,” she said happily. “But you haven’t given me enough money,” said the bartender. “That’s okay,” said McAlex. “You can keep the change.” “But there is no change,” said the bartender. “So, how can I keep it?

The dietary staple of Okinawans prior to the arrival of the Americans at the end of World War II was sweet potatoes, which provided approximately 50 per cent of daily calories. Purple (Beni Imo) or yellow orange (Satsuma Imo) sweet potatoes are extremely rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6, manganese and other antioxidants like anthocyanins – the same pigments that give blueberries their colour. Elsewhere in Japan, about 78 per cent of dietary calories came from cereals, especially rice.

Ooo, Carl, Potatogeddon would have been a better title for this book. What’s wrong with World War Potato? Well, there aren’t really any wars in the book, and we don’t see the whole world. Listen, Alex, the title sounds cool, and that’s the most important thing. If you have a cool title, people will buy the book.

There’s no such thing as a benevolent leader. I protect you because you work for me. If you act like a fool and go against my interests, then I can’t protect you. As for these Korean groups, you have to remember that no matter what, the men who are in charge are just men—so they’re not much smarter than pigs. And we eat pigs. You lived with that farmer Tamaguchi who sold sweet potatoes for obscene prices to starving Japanese during a time of war. He violated wartime regulations, and I helped him, because he wanted money and I do, too. He probably thinks he’s a decent, respectable Japanese, or some kind of proud nationalist—don’t they all? He’s a terrible Japanese, but a smart businessman. I’m not a good Korean, and I’m not a Japanese. I’m very good at making money. This country would fall apart if everyone believed in some samurai crap. The Emperor does not give a fuck about anyone, either. So I’m not going to tell you not to go to any meetings or not to join any group. But know this: Those communists don’t care about you. They don’t care about anybody. You’re crazy if you think they care about Korea.

I'm a businessman. And I want you to be a businessman. And whenever you go to these meeting, I want you to think for yourself, and I want you to think about promoting your own interests no matter what. All these people - both the Japanese and the Koreans - are fucked because they keep thinking about the group. But here's the truth: There's no such thing as a benevolent leader. I protect you because you work for me. If you act like a fool and go against my interests, then I can't protect you. As for these Korean groups, you have to remember that no matter what, the men who are in charge are just men - so they're not much smarter than pigs. And we eat pigs. You lived with that farmer Tamaguchi who sold sweet potatoes for obscene prices to starving Japanese during a time of war. He violated wartime regulations, and I helped him, because he wanted money and I do, too. He probably thinks he's a decent, respectable Japanese, or some kind of proud nationalist - don't they all? He's a terrible Japanese, but a smart businessman. I'm not a good Korean, and I'm not Japanese. I'm ver good at making money. This country would fall apart if everyone believed in samurai crap. The Emperor does not give a fuck about anyone, either. So I'm not going to tell you not to go to any meetings or not to join any group. But know this: Those communists don't care about you. They don't care about anybody. You're crazy if you think they care about Korea.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” McAlex yelled. “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!