Is there anyone who doesn't love Sunday dinners?

Especially on Fast Sundays,

Well today we had something that we haven't had in a really long time...my "famous" mashed potatoes. At my urging, Makana finally bought a bag of potatoes. She hadn't bought them in a long time because she doesn't really like them. I love them, but I don't care much for rice. Makana, with her Hawaiian blood, loves rice so that is what we generally have with our meals.

Quick story about the mashed potatoes. Growing up, Mom would make us dinner 4 nights a week (M-Th). Friday nights, we were on our own, and on Saturday nights we would usually order pizza from Little Caesars OR Dad would make us his famed grilled cheese (or grilled tuna cheese) sandwiches. Sunday was always Dad's cooking day. Anyway, Monday through Thursday the meals would be any number of dishes, most were really good. Well, my Dad on the other hand, has always been a meat and potatoes guy and so it made sense that almost every Sunday dinner (with the exception of Fast Sunday) we had meat and potatoes. Not that I minded; Dad's meat, with few exceptions, would turn out great and his mashed potatoes are still the best I have ever had, anywhere (period, exclamation mark - I know that doesn't make sense, but I wanted to be emphatic). I would often help out peeling the potatoes or cutting fruit and so I would watch how he cooked the potatoes. Basically, he would use evaporated milk and fluff the heck out of the potatoes and then add quite a bit of shredded cheese. Then he would salt and pepper it, just right. Quite simple really, but nobody cooked 'em like Dad did. Well when I went out on my own, I tried mashed potatoes myself. It took me couple of times to master them, but now I can say that I too make the best mashed potatoes anywhere (period, exclamation mark).

Well when Makana and I were first married I told her I would like to continue my family's tradition and cook on Sundays. That lasted maybe a month and a half. I didn't have many recipes in my repertoire and so I would spend a lot of time on Sunday cooking. I hated it and would get angry and frustrated, so I stopped and Makana has been cooking ever since (with a few notable exceptions). She has asked me a couple of times if I was ever going to pick that up again and I wasn't opposed to the idea. Well today she asked me if I would cook dinner and I begrudgingly said yes. Then I remembered that we had potatoes! Mashed potatoes for dinner here we come!

After I got some good mashed potatoes in me, I figured, why stop there? So I decided I would post on the blog today (the blog is another thing I had agreed to help out with, but with which my efforts have been subpar). Just look what happens when I get on a roll!