Dear Kitchen Gardener,

Envy is not an "evolved" emotion, but I have to admit to feeling pangs of it at the sight of these plump, colorful potatoes.  They arrived in my e-mail inbox courtesy of New Zealand gardener, Rachel Knight, who grew them and is the subject of our latest kitchen gardener profile.

It's not that I don't have potatoes of my own.  We grew six varieties last season and still have a number of them left.  The problem is that mine look too much like what they are: tubers harvested in October stored until late February in less than optimal conditions.  My family and I are quite new to our current house, so we're still getting to know what works where, inside and out.  Our potatoes have held up surprisingly well in our cool basement with very little sprouting.  Within a couple of weeks, we will have made our way through all the large and medium ones and will be down to the nugget-sized ones, many of which will end up as seed potatoes. 

Seeing this photo and the different varieties it features made me think about just how undiscovered the potato is for many gardeners and cooks.  Sure, we all know what a potato is, may have grown some, and probably know a handful of recipes that call for them. That said, most us are probably still just scratching the surface of what this white-fleshed wonder can do.  This thought led me to take a quick inventory of my family's own potato usage. 

As some of you will know from previous newsletters, I live in a Belgo-American household, so potatoes are a staple in our cooking.  Here are some of the different ways that we've prepared ours over the course of the past year in no particular order: mashed, baked, boiled, oven-roasted, pan-fried, Belgian fries, potato soup, latkes, potato bread, Spanish potato tortilla, Flemish-style mashed potatoes (stoemp), potatoes au gratin, and various potato salads in the summer.  We, of course, use them in other ways too such as in soups and stews, but these are the dishes that came to mind where potatoes play the starring role. 

This list isn't bad, but it could be longer and more culturally diversified.  For example, I'd love to try my hand at making home-made potato gnocchi or spicy, potato-filled samosas .  For me, the joy of cooking is stepping out of the comfort zone to explore uncharted territory.  Occasionally, I find myself completely lost in the culinary wild with various burns and cuts, not to mention a bruised ego. 

More often than not, though, I find my way back to something that's not only palatable, but quite tasty.  And when I'm really good, my cooking manages to arouse a whole range of emotions in my eaters and dinner guests: pleasure, wonder, gratitude, and - who knows - maybe even a touch of envy. 

Hang in there until next month.  The days are getting longer, warmer, and brighter for most of us and more bountiful for others like Rachel whose summer season is reaching peak.