Ray's Hasselback Potatoes

Has anyone ever made Hasselback Potatoes before? Plotnik never had. Wow, they're really good!

Some of you may remember that Plotnik's neighbor Ray, who lives across the street, lost his wife Pat maybe a year and a half ago. Ray has been grieving non-stop since then, and still gets up every morning and drives to the cemetery to talk with her. Ray is retired and doesn't seem to do anything for the rest of the day but walk around the neighborhood, so Plotnik goes over now and then to sit in Ray's living room in front of some silent game show on a blurry old TV, and hear Ray talk about the old people and the way it used to be, the same stories over and over again.

"Do you know how much Fred paid for his house?"

"Yes I do, Ray. You've told me before."

"$68,000."

"Yes, and if you only had known it was for sale..."

"If I'd only have known it was for sale I'd have made an offer."

The truth is it's almost comforting to hear Ray tell those stories. There are never any surprises.

When Pat was alive, all you heard much of between them was Ray calling "Patricia, bring me this" and "Patricia, bring me that." But she probably was his only friend. She sat on the sofa across from where Plotnik sits now, under the old portrait of Ray and Pat and their four daughters. Now Ray has nobody to bring him anything.

Looking at him, you'd get a false opinion of Ray -- he looks like your typical hardheaded ex-city worker, who fought in Korea and came home with Popeye-like tattoos on both arms. He's got an enormous belly and it pokes through the buttons of his pajama top, because he's always wearing pjs in the house whenever Plotnik goes over.

But Ray has a big heart. He was a city gardener for decades and he likes to make sure John the King's roses are pruned on time and that Ducknik puts enough water on her newly-planted artemisia. He has helped Plotnik countless times with various gardening questions and is the man Plot calls to take cuttings from his daturas or transplant the cymbidia. If Plot needs a tool, Ray walks down to his garage to find it.

It turns out that Ray is not always alone when he goes to the cemetery. He has recently met another guy there, who comes every Friday to visit his deceased wife. Ray says this guy's wife has been gone eight years and that the fellow is talking about dying a lot more now.

This man apparently has a wholesale fruit busineess of some kind. So each Friday he loads his car up with produce and brings it to Ray. Ray offloads it into his trunk and when he comes home, he parks his big black Buick in his garage, opens the trunk and goes around to the neighbors and offers them fresh produce.

Well...not exactly FRESH produce, but produce, and most of it is still quite good. The Last Friday Plotnik ended up with several pounds of mushrooms, a dozen huge white onions...and a zillion potatoes.

The mushrooms just needed to be washed off well and the onions had a few bruises to be cut out but the potatoes are spotless.

"But Ray, we don't eat that many potatoes."

"Take 'em, take 'em. Otherwise I'll have to give 'em to Pete."

"So give 'em to Pete."

"No, because he'll just give 'em to M_____."

"Well, that's OK then. M_____ can use 'em, he's got all those kids."

Plot only says that to needle Ray, because he knows Ray can't stand M_____. It makes no sense, because Plot likes M____. He's a great guy, hard-working, all the things Ray ought to admire in somebody. But these two have lived in the 'hood forever and somewhere in antiquity M____ and Ray must have crossed shovels, though neither one can remember why anymore.

Ray is damned if M_____ is going to get any of those potatoes.

"No, you take 'em. I ain't givin' 'em to M_____."

"Maybe Pete will give 'em to somebody else?"

Ray smiles and stares at Plotnik like Plotnik just doesn't get it. Ray reaches into his trunk, takes the huge box of potatoes, perhaps 15 pounds or more, and puts it in Plotnik's arms.

"No," Ray says. "He won't."

Plotnik can't throw out food. It makes him crazy. So what do you do with all these potatoes?

You make Hasselback Potatoes, that's what you do. You take nine white waxy potatoes, preferably out of someone's trunk who got them at the cemetery out of someone else's trunk, both of whom are visiting their dead wives, and you put each potato onto a large metal spoon. You take a sharp knife and cut through each potato at 1/2" intervals, but you only cut down to the spoon so you don't go all the way through the potato. You end up with potato fans.

Then you take 2T olive oil and almost that much butter, put it into a roasting pan and heat the butter and oil on the stove top, in the roasting pan, until it sizzles. Then you take the potatoes and roll them around in the butter and oil, leaving them cut side up. Salt the potatoes and then place the roasting pan in a hot oven (400 degrees) for an hour or so. That's it.

They come out crispy and you can cut through each slice with your fork and it tastes like the roast potatoes your Swedish grandmother used to make, old Grandmummy Svensgaardnik.

Plot plans to take a few of the extra Hasselback Potatoes over to Ray this afternoon, but he knows Ray won't eat them. Ray's daughter says he doesn't eat much of anything anymore, so how he maintains that huge gut is hard to figure.

As for the mushrooms, Plot cut the stems off all the caps, then sauteed a pound of the caps a la Marc Bittman with white wine and garlic and plenty of time afterwards to let them sit and absorb the juices, then took the other half of the caps and all the stems and made a terrific mushroom pasta sauce using ground chipotle powder.

Poor Ray. Life is hard.