Your Weekly Antics, Fear of the Potato Peeler Edition...11/28/24

Well kids, I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet this week because Thanksgiving is upon us. If you haven’t started peeling and baking and stuffing, I don’t know what to tell you other than you’re screwed, and you may need to rethink your meal plan. As a result of waking up last week and realizing that Thanksgiving is today, I decided I would take a new approach this holiday season and delegate some tasks to the Kap kids. We’re going to focus on the youngest Kap kid this week because the older two have become wise to my methods and made themselves scarce during this inquisition. Sit back and enjoy all the reasons Meredith gave for being unable to participate in Thanksgiving Day food prep. Here’s what I've got…

1. The great potato peeling incident of 2019. The then 12-year-old Meredith was handed the dreaded task that all kids hate, peeling potatoes. She started out strong until she peeled the top of her thumb off, or so she says. She was convinced she had lost the entire finger when in fact it was a minor abrasion. Still, she swore off potato peeling and potatoes forever and moved onto the potatoes distant and foreign cousin

twice removed, the French fry.

2. In case you're wondering or perhaps looking for something to talk about during your Thanksgiving dinner, according to the internet where we get all of our information, Alfred Neweczeral is considered the most likely candidate to be given the title of potato peeler inventor. He invented the most popular potato peeler, the Y-type peeler, the Rex Potato Peeler, in 1947. This peeler is so famous it was featured on a Swiss postage stamp in 2004. Don't let anyone tell you that you didn't show up to dinner this holiday season without fascinating facts to contribute to mealtime discussions while carving up the bird. Another fun fact, due to the incident mentioned in #1, Meri has sworn off Switzerland now too. The country and their potato peeler can skip along, she wants nothing to do with either of them.

3. Peeling of any kind, regardless of the mechanism used to do the peeling. This leaves out peeling of carrots, squash, beets, cucumbers and onions. When questioned about fruit, all bets are off with those too, so no apples were peeled to prepare for an apple pie. Any fruit or vegetable that requires peeling and involves the potato peeler is out of the question, no room for debate. Off limits.

4. No chopping, cutting or slicing of any kind. According to her, knives and sharp objects should be prohibited from the kitchen. Let's just recap a bit, shall we? That leaves us with no fruits or vegetables of any kind, she's never going to Switzerland, potato peelers and their inventor Alfred are not her favorite and are all on her list of banned things.

5. That brings us to carving. “Anything involving carving, I’m out…” MVK 2024. That includes and not limited to, pumpkins, turkeys, turnips, watermelon and rutabagas. According to Garron Noone, an Instagram legend from Ireland, that statement alone goes against Meredith’s heritage and the Irish people. Apparently, the Irish carve turnips rather than pumpkins, but like Garron, Meri also finds the carved turnip terrifying and wants nothing to do with it.

6. What is a rutabaga you ask? It is a nutritious root vegetable from the cabbage family with dense, sweet-tasting yellow flesh (The Spruce Eats, 2015). Sounds disgusting. No way that’s being served at our house, so don’t worry about having to peel that one.

7. Taking things out of the oven when the buzzer goes off is also off the table. Meri announced that she has trust issues with oven mitts. You get something out of the oven one time when the mitt has a hole in it, or you set it on fire, or you’re left home alone when you’re little with your older sister who lets you watch a horror moving involving an elderly woman asking a child to climb into a hot oven, and next thing you know, the oven mitt, and the oven altogether, is off limits too.

8. Hot pots and pans. Having an irrational fear of oven mitts leaves one without the necessary equipment to remove hot items from the oven or the stove. The youngest Kap kid's reasoning...what if you drop a hot pan on your toe? This could lead to toe breakage. You don’t realize how important your toes are until one isn’t working. A kid needs all her toes.  

9. Fine, I'll find something for her to do...the kid can open up a can of something, right?. No – can – do. The can opener, closely related to the potato peeler and a descendant of the knife, can also inflict harm from sharp edges created from opening cans with the can opener. She tells me that is also much too risky and that will be a hard pass. Sorry lady, I can't help you with anything involving a can or a can opener.

10. The kitchen scares me, maybe I should be in charge of something that doesn’t involve the kitchen. Are – you – serious??? Dead serious. This is why I only eat cereal, sun chips and iced coffee from Dunkins.

And last but not least...the youngest Kap kid did eventually land on a side dish she could prepare that did not involve can openers, knives, potato peelers, rutabagas or oven mitts. Armed with a spoon, peel back lids on the mushroom soup cans, fresh green beans and her grandmother to manage the over without risk of throwing her in it, Greenbean casserole it is.

Happy Thanksgiving!