Sweet Potatoes ala Davidson sort of (less than a dollar, a little more than half an hour)

Danielle Davidson was one of the finest students I've ever had the privilege to teach.

No, she's not dead. She just graduated and got a job. What were you thinking?

Anyway, she wrote me a while ago with a recipe, which like a terrible self-replicating virus (not the kind I was envisioning, but oh well), I read, punctured the membrane of, wrote my genetic code into, and began merrily to change. I'm sorry, Danielle. Never trust me to pass on anything directly. I just can't. It's not in my nature.

Now, when I think of Gone with the Wind (1939), I tend to remember a couple of key scenes. The dead and dying at the station. The red dressing gown. But mostly: "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!" [Music rises.] I tend, however, to forget that the food she's found is radishes. RADISHES.

Not what in my mind even starving people relish. Radishes. So when I remember the scene, I unconsciously replace the radishes with a better tasting, creamy delish food, a yummy, non-radishy substance.

Sweet potatoes. Ummmm.

I don't remember sweet potatoes much in my childhood; in fact, though I knew what they were, mostly I remember the baked variety that my ex-mother-in-law took to my husband's grandmother in the nursing home/hospital: a single, caramelized baked potato, cold and in its skin. A kind of gift.

So for me, sweet potatoes are a newish thing. I originally treated them like white potatoes: mashed, butter and salt, etc. They were okay like this, nothing special. Then I tried treating them like squash, baked, butter and cinnamon. They were like dessert like this: very sweet.

This was not satisfying. Then I started making fudge, not with sweet potatoes, but with chocolate of course: to which I started adding chili powder. Then I got Danielle's recipe. Then I started thinking.

And THEN I bought this crazy stuff: chipotle powder (Jesus God, its own website!). Dekalb Farmer's Market is a wonder, the tenth or whatever wonder of the world. Who knew you could powder chipotles?

So: this is the simplification and perversion of Danielle's sweet potatoes.

You need about two pounds of sweet potatoes, salt, oil, chipotle powder. And an oven. That's it.

Preheat oven to 350.

Peel and dice the sweet potatoes into about 1 1/2" pieces.

Lightly oil a heavy, oven-proof dish.

Dump in the diced sweet potatoes and stir to coat them with the oil.

Sprinkle with about a tsp of salt.

Then, depending on how spicy you like things, sprinkle a pinch (not very spicy) or two (spicy) or three (you better have some milk [for Lucy] near) over the sweet potato.

Bake until they're soft, about half an hour.

Stir them half way through to distribute the spices.

Eat. It's yummy stuff. And good for you!

There you go.