Not So Sweet Potato Hash

I'm familiar with the saying "You don't know what you have until it's gone," but I never expected it to apply to salt and pepper. Holy shit I will never take salt and pepper for granted again.

What the hell am I talking about, you're probably wondering.

Last weekend, my wife and I made plans to spend the weekend at a cabin in Idylwild, an artsy little mountain town about two hours from San Diego. The cabin came with a "full" kitchen and with Covid winding down but still, you know, killing people, we figured we'd pack some groceries and do a little cooking in instead of dining out. For breakfast the first morning, I brought sweet potatoes, spinach and eggs and intended to cook up a tasty hash with fried eggs. Sounded good in theory until I scavanged the entire kitchen before realizing there was not a morsel of salt or flake of pepper to be found.

Seriously, have you ever tried cooking without salt and pepper? Defeated, angry and worried, I clanged around the kitchen for the next 45 minutes muttering many versions of the F word under my breath before accepting my fate.

Spoiler: there isn't a happy ending here. Despite some creativity on my part, the hash didn't miraculously come out delicious. Cooking requires salt and pepper, full fucking stop.

What I did do, though, was this: I pulled the pepperonis off leftover pizza we brought up the mountain for lunch, cut them up and tried to at least grease the pan (oh yeah, shit, there was no olive oil or butter, either; this kitchen was about as equiped as a rowboat). The only thing I had for "seasoning" was salty crackers we had for snacks, which I crumbled up hoping the flavoring would add some...flavoring. It didn't really work.

Oh well. In the end, we had sustenance, which is the most important thing. And I learned a solid lesson to never, ever ever to take salt and pepper for granted again. God bless our ancestors for figuring out the importance of S&P.