Recovering from an end-of-year bout of Covid, a baked potato was the only thing I could stomach. New Years and my birthday had come and gone in a sad murmur of oh wells. I’d spent those holidays on my couch, eyes droopy from watching too many Netflix movies, a coverlet pulled to my nose. But after falling asleep for a glorious 24 hours, I needed—a potato slathered in butter and sprinkled with a dash of salt and pepper. Think of Vincent Van Gogh’s potato eaters gathered around a single wavering light; cups of coffee are more visible in that famous painting than potatoes, but perhaps the family had already eaten. And why wouldn’t they? Potatoes are known to have made their way to Europe in the sixteenth century thanks to an Inca/Spanish connection. During the Seven Years War, Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, a French army pharmacist, ate potatoes in Prussian prisons, and once freed, he evangelized potatoes as a nutritious food. Word spread. In the following century, Scottish-Irish immigrants introduced them to New Hampshire and recipes for potato dishes have since proliferated.
My plan was simple, drive to a family-owned grocery that partners with local farmers, come back, wrap the potato in tin foil with a few drops of olive oil, and bake. Shopping would take no more than twenty minutes. I got in my car and surveyed the sidewalk. There’ve been a rash of car thefts and break-ins with only an umbrella to defend myself.
Today, an In-N-Out Burger has decided to leave Oakland due to crime, the first time in 75 years of operation it has closed any one of its stores following many businesses that have made the same move. The bakery where I shop has threatened to do the same after last week’s break-in, thieves getting away with ten thousand dollars. One by one, businesses are closing doors; robbers will have no more windows to smash or cash registers to steal. I drive to the local grocery and buy a few russets. In an hour, my dinner was served. But if the crime keeps up, I may have to carry one of those nasty vials of spray or an alarm, not that it would help; I probably couldn’t find either in time. In the meantime, city government is asleep on the couch, Oakland’s mayor proclaims there’s no crime, but it feels like every night our city gets a dishonorable mention on the national news.