I've Boiled Two Potatoes So What Does That Make Me?

There can't be a much uglier thing to do than to boil potatoes.

Potatoes themselves, cut up, are beautiful in much the same way that pears are beautiful. They fall from the knife in white or golden wedges, fresh sheathes in the harvest of moisture and chop that draws us, time and again, to turn a whole tuber into a divided one.

But the potato in this disunified estate, once turned over to the ravages of hot water, loses all appeal. A potato gives up starches like a binge dieter. On your hands when you cut into one, on the knife, on the counter--the vestiges of potato cling. In it's swan song the potato seems bent on confirming its status as complex carbohydrate. "In case you forget when I'm gone," it should say, "I've left a starch here and there around the house to remind you." And into the pot the pieces go, crying out to you as water covers them, hands are rinsed, knives washed, countertops wiped. So the boiling water takes the brunt of the potato blood.

Potato-boilers have a certain look about them.