Butter, Bliss, and the Softest Bite in Existence

There are a few things in life that require zero effort to love. Puppies. A good nap. Mashed potatoes.

No food arrives with more certainty, more quiet assurance that it will absolutely deliver. Mashed potatoes don't need to beg for attention - they simply exist, buttery and inevitable. They do not strive for reinvention. No one, not even the most self-important chef, is out here attempting to deconstruct mashed potatoes or serve them in a gravity-defying foam. No, they remain gloriously unchanged. Why? Because they are already perfect.

Consider the potato - a humble little rock of starch, minding its own business in the dirt, waiting to be plucked from obscurity and transformed. And yet, in its transformation, there is no struggle, no existential crisis. It simply becomes. Boiled, smashed, whipped into velvety submission. Other foods aspire to complexity, to sharp edges and dramatic textures. Mashed potatoes know better. They are softness incarnate, the culinary equivalent of an exhale.

And there is no wrong way to enjoy them. You can drown them in gravy, let them stand on their own, even pile them onto a fork with reckless abandon. they welcome all preferences, all levels of indulgence, all stages of life - from highchair childhood spoonfuls to the kind of adult stress eating where the only solution is a bowl of buttery starch. They do not judge. They do not disappoint. Their mission is singular: comfort.

So, let's abandon the debate. There is no question of their supremacy. No need to interrogate their purpose. Mashed potatoes will always delivery the soft, rich, golden perfection that other foods can only dream of.

After all, some things in life just taste right. And they taste like butter.

-The Breuklyn Cook