Harvest 2016: Sweet Potatoes

As we were driving south for our vacation last week we saw three different signs beside the road (Route 13) advertising sweet potatoes. I LOVE sweet potatoes.  Dear One tolerates them. Occasionally.  Every time we saw a sign, we did NOT see any sweet potatoes.  As we left to drive back north we agreed that if we saw sweet potatoes we would stop.

WELL!  We did see a sign but the stand was RIGHT THERE, way too quick to turn off the highway without danger to life and limb, so we drove on.  Eventually, in Bridgeville, Delaware, we saw another sign, then a large field of cornstalks, then a pickup truck parted beside the road.  Dear One pulled over!

On the open tailgate of the truck were three big baskets of the largest sweet potatoes I had ever seen.  Dear One had given me three bills when I got out of the car: a ten, a five, and a one.  I asked the man at the truck about the big baskets of giant sweet potatoes.  They were $16!!!  Exactly the amount of money I had in my hand. 

Rushing back to the car I cleared a spot in the back seat for the basket of potatoes then went back to the truck.  More cars were stopping behind us.  It turns out the small baskets were $9, which is what the woman behind me bought while I was arranging the car to store the potatoes. 

It turned out the basket did not come with the potatoes.  Too bad.  Either way, I just wanted those potatoes.  A very large sturdy paper bag of sweet potatoes later, I was ready for some information on how to take care of the potatoes.  (Each potato will serve two hungry people, so it will take a while to eat them all.

This nice man said to store these potatoes in a dark, dry, warm place in their unwashed condition.  He said we needed to put a newspaper over the top so any moisture in the air would be caught by the newspaper and not settle on the potatoes.  He told me that if we stored them this way, the potatoes would last for a year.  Well, I can tell you right now, they WILL NOT last for a year. I doubt if they will last until Thanksgiving!  Unless I practice extreme restraint.  I have already consumed one that I cooked in the microwave.