Around 8 pm Wednesday evening I bought a bag of small red potatoes. The idea was to chop three or four into eighths and boil them, and then add sautéed onions, a squeeze of lemon, garlic, sour cream, salt and a little butter. I did the chopping and boiling but forgot about the rest due to the distraction of a film Tatiana and I were watching — Karel Reisz and James Toback’s The Gambler (‘74j.

12 or 13 minutes later I remembered about the potatoes. I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a wooden spoon and began stirring the boiling water. Lo and behold, I found a mushy, gleaming bar of hand soap boiling in the same pot…the fuck? I scooped it out and put it into the soap dish, and then poured the potatoes into a strainer and dumped them into a serving bowl.

They tasted like potatoes covered in soap sauce. Brilliant!

This really happened around 9:30 pm. Tatiana was doubled over. “Jeff…only you could do this,” she said between spasms. “You’re crazy!” Maybe but this was an accident. Okay, I’m eccentric but nobody boils soap and potatoes.