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by Jessica Davis

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Build me up, buttercup. Or don't.

The children get nervous when they are left alone with me in the house for too long, fearing they will starve to death. So I decide to cook dinner and free up their little brains to worry about other things, like scary monsters or bad men or polyester shirts.

I squirt olive oil on a slab of raw salmon and squeeze some lemon juice on top and slide the whole slimy mess into a Pyrex baking dish. I have no idea if one is actually supposed to put olive oil on a fish, but it makes it nice and shiny and the lemon seeds get stuck in the oil in a decorative pattern.

I am so busy being proud of myself for preheating the oven to the completely random temperature of 364 degrees F, that I almost forget to make something else to put on their plates with the salmon. I check the vegetable drawer, a drawer I have not visited since we arrived home from the Land of Unforgettable Spa Treatments, because no one eats vegetables around here anymore.

A family of potatoes to sacrifice! Yes! Potatoes! I am dimly aware that there are things you can do with potatoes, processes that make them edible. I think hard. A tiny lightbulb appears over my head, then shatters into smithereens as the children run for cover.

I peel my potatoes. They slip out of my hands and into the stainless-steel sink, over and over. I try hard not to think about the dirty mop water and the old food sediment that have spent time in this sink. Peel. Slip. Boom. Peel. Slip. Boom.

"How am I supposed to do this? This is hard," I say. I just need Daisy Dukes and a maltese in a Louis Vuitton case.

Christopher turns his face to the teapot and they share a smirk together.

"I know what you're thinking," I say. "You're thinking people have been peeling potatoes since the beginning of civilization and I should be able to manage this with a potato peeler, standing in a well-lit kitchen. I am not squatting in front of a dying fire and hurling rocks at mastodons. I know. But it is still VERY HARD to peel potatoes."

Christopher hides under the tea cozy with the teapot. I can hear them giggling together.
I get the potatoes and two fingers peeled. I watch the potatoes on the cutting board. Nothing is happening. I don't know why.

"What do I do with potatoes?" I ask.

"It depends," he says. "What do you want to do with the potatoes?"

"I want to be able to eat them," I say. Another little light bulb. This one lasts a little longer before it explodes, sprinkling imaginary light-bulb bits all over the potatoes. I resist the urge to brush off the imaginary light-bulb bits while Chris is watching.

"I think I want to mash them," I say.

"Then boil them," he says.

"For how long?"

"Fifteen minutes or so."

"Then what?"

"Then you mash."

"With what?"

"With a masher."

I follow his instructions. I decide to cook some carrots too. If I can pull this off, three foods at one dinner, no one will expect me to cook for at least two months.

I dump seventeen organic baby carrots into a frying pan. I wave at them. They do nothing. I look around. There is a clear plastic teddy bear sitting on the dishwasher. Use me, abuse me, he growls. I dump a glob of honey on top of the carrots and turn up the heat. I dump some olive oil on them, too, just for kicks.

Not bad. It smells like things are happening in here. "I'm cooking dinner," I call out to the household. "Dinner will be ready very soon. My dinner. The dinner I am making. For all of us. A nice dinner."

No one replies.

I poke at the salmon a few times. It is pink inside, but it was pink to start with, so I don't know how anyone ever knows if a salmon is ready to eat. I like sushi, so I would be just as happy to have skipped all the oven preheating business and chowed down the fish in as-is condition. But I don't know anyone who does this at home.

I mash the potatoes with the masher. I add every dairy product that I can find in the refrigerator: sour cream, butter, yogurt, milk, half-and-half. I want to cover all the bases. I think about adding apple juice, but think better of it at the last second.

The carrots have strange black stripes on them now. I will introduce them as Zebra Carrots to the children, and surely everyone will be happy.

"Dinner is ready," I say. "THE DINNER THAT I HAVE PREPARED."

I slop the trio of foods onto everyone's plates. The kids guzzle their cups of milk and stare at the solid foods.

"Well! Let's dig in!"

I dig in. No one else is digging in.

"What are the white things?" asks Sam.

"Mashed potatoes! I mashed them! With a masher!" I say cheerfully.

The kids eat their mashed potatoes. They steer clear of the fish and the carrots.

"Um, Mommy? The carrots have black things on them," says Sam. Hannie nods in agreement.

"I cooked them with honey, and honey turns black when you cook it. It's a yummy, yummy black!"

"Oh," says Sam. He maneuvers his fork away from the carrots and back to the potatoes.

"Aren't you going to eat your salmon?" I ask him. "I made salmon for you because it's healthy. You like healthy foods because Miss Melissa says they are good for you."

He sighs. "I have other favorite foods, you know."

"Yeah, I wish you would let me in on them."

He holds out his fingers and starts ticking them off.

"One is mashed potatoes. Two is broccoli. Three is carrots. Five is ice cream."

Carrots, my ass. His Honey-Blackened Zebra Carrots whinny sweetly and hopefully. He ignores them.

"What about four?" I ask. "What's four?"

"Buttercups."

Chris looks at me. I look at him. We look at Sam.

"Buttercups? The flowers?"

There is a long pause. He shifts in his chair.

"You can eat some of those, I believe," he says.

"You believe?"

"Yes," he says. "Can I have more mashed potatoes?"

I stand up to get a Post-It. "Buttercups, he believes. I have to write that down," I say to Chris. "The comma. The comma! The CLAUSE!"

Sam rolls his eyes and stuffs another clump of mashed potatoes into his mouth. It's hard to have a mother who blogs at the dinner table and burns carrots.

Learn more about this author, Jessica Davis.

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