Tell Me About It, Humboldt features short conversations with Humboldt County, California residents about their niche interests and obsessions. You know that thing you can't stop talking about at parties, even after everyone has walked away? That’s what we want to hear. The subject you geek out about? Let’s discuss! Come one, come all and let’s learn about our neighbors through these far ranging topics.
This week’s episode focuses on potato decorating with Peggy from Aracta. If you are interested in potato decorating, find some ideas here. And click here if you want to learn more about how to submit a project to the Humboldt County Fair contests.
This show is supported and produced by Cal Poly Humboldt’s College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences. Interested in being on the show or do you have someone you want to recommend? Email podcasts@humboldt.edu.
>>Abigail Smithson: Welcome to Tell Me About It, Humboldt, on KHSU. This is a show dedicated to building community by showcasing the amazing, eclectic, deep, and sometimes weird expertise and passions of people living in Humboldt County. Maybe nobody at the cocktail party or staff picnic wants to hear you go on and on about this topic, but guess what? We do. And here's your host, Joyce.
>>Joice Chang: Hello, everyone. We are here with Peggy from Arcata today. Welcome, Peggy.
>>Peggy Stewart: Thank you.
>>Joice Chang: We are going to talk about something very exciting today, but before we get there, I want you to tell us about a thing that you don't care about.
>>Peggy Stewart: Expiration dates on food.
>>Joice Chang: Really? That? I don't know. Tell us about that.
>>Peggy Stewart: I guess I should also qualify, like, most foods, I guess.
>>Joice Chang: Most foods. Okay. Alright, so give me an example of an expiration date you might see on a food item, and you're like, meh, that's just a suggestion.
>>Peggy Stewart: Most condiments, I think, like hot sauce? I don't know if that stuff can ever go bad. Ketchup?
>>Joice Chang: Probably not.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. And I can usually see through the bottle, and if there's nothing growing on it, it's fine. [LAUGHTER]
>>Joice Chang: Perfect. Okay, well, I think this is a nice lead in to our topic, which is, what are we going to talk about today?
>>Peggy Stewart: Potato decorating.
>>Joice Chang: Potato decorating. Okay. Tell us what it is.
>>Peggy Stewart: Alright. So, the Humboldt County Fair, as part of their home arts competitions, offers a potato decorating competition. You can enter a single potato or a group potato. Some of the examples that I've seen people do: dinosaur scenes, farm animals, a lot of, like, puns based on, like, spuds or taters. So like dictators, spectators, agitators.
>>Joice Chang: Wow. That is-- that is some creativity. That's pretty cool.
>>Peggy Stewart: My very favorite potato display that I've seen is the rose ceremony from the Bachelor done in potatoes.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. And can you describe the scene for us, since we're on radio?
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes, one bachelor potato with googly eyes.
>>Joice Chang: Obviously with googly eyes.
>>Peggy Stewart: Three bachelorette potatoes with googly eyes. Okay. So I really like that, like, kind of, like, humorous juxtaposition of like, a potato, doing something like...
>>Joice Chang: Un-potatoely.
>>Peggy Stewart: ...serious. Yeah.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. Alright
>>Peggy Stewart: Serious or romantic. And then you put the chokit together, and it's hilarious.
>>Joice Chang: It is-- You're right. That is very true. When you enter the potato decorating contest, you work on it, and then you submit it. Okay. So tell us what that process is like.
>>Peggy Stewart: It's me and three friends.
>>Joice Chang: Did you start this trend, or is this like a collective obsession?
>>Peggy Stewart: I did start this, but I think it's become a collective obsession.
>>Joice Chang: Fantastic. Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes, I grew up entering things in my hometown local fair. So, and then I like, came up here, and a couple of years ago, I was like, let me enter some baked goods.
>>Joice Chang: Yes.
>>Peggy Stewart: And as I'm looking at their baked good entries, I see decorated potato on there as an option. And it's like, What the heck is this? Yeah, so that caught my attention right away. And because we're a group, there are more moving pieces. We have to, like, schedule meetings. We have a brainstorming meeting.
>>Joice Chang: This is serious.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes, we like list out, like what elements we think we'll need for a scene. We usually do a group potato rather than a single potato.
>>Joice Chang: Yeah. I think that gives you more room to be creative, right?
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes.
>>Joice Chang: With potatoes.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes, I think so.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. Do you as a committee, do you come up with some ideas of a scene first, before you talk about the elements?
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes, we have a running list now, probably of like 15 or 20 things we might do.
>>Joice Chang: Oh.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah.
>>Joice Chang: So you're going to be doing this for at least 15 or 20 more years.
>>Peggy Stewart: Some of them I'm ready to drop off the list, but...
>>Joice Chang: Perfect.
>>Peggy Stewart: I do see us doing this for awhile.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. You decide on-- this is a very democratic process?
>>Peggy Stewart: For the most part, yes, for the most part. Okay. I feel like I'm a little bit of a-- I call myself a potatozilla, like a bridezilla. I get serious and focused. So last year's display, for example, was one that I had strong feelings about. I thought it would be really cute, and I thought it would be easy to do. So, I pushed really hard for that one. And then this year, because I had pushed so hard for that one, I took a little bit of a step back and was, like, listen to more feedback from the group and...
>>Joice Chang: Okay. So you feel like you're also learning a little bit about yourself in this process?
>>Peggy Stewart: Oh, yes. And group dynamics.
>>Joice Chang: And group dynamics.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. Can you tell us about the art piece that you made last year?
>>Peggy Stewart: Last year, it was seals on a rock jutting out of the ocean. I was inspired by a photograph that I think Kelly Jo Brown from Cal Poly Humboldt had taken, she's the campus photographer.
>>Joice Chang: Shout out to Kelly.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes. So I was inspired by that. And I was like, Potatoes are already roughly seal shaped, this is going to be great. This is a good display to talk about-- to also get into, like, there's a surprising amount of experimentation that goes on in potato decorating.
>>Joice Chang: Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: And that I had shown you the photo earlier of that scene, and you saw the little, like, flippers and tail on there. And those were, like, potato peelings that I had scraped off of a different potato, and then glued onto our seal potato.
>>Joice Chang: I like how you said you peel them off from a different potato. This is a very important point.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes. Yeah, I worry, and I need to do more experimentation about this, that if I do too much damage to the potato, like, it will wither, or rot in a way that won't last out the week at the fair. So, I'm keeping that in mind while we're doing our potatoes. Like, some of the ideas that we come up with, like, might require, like, carving or something, if we did a Mount Rushmore scene or something like that.
>>Joice Chang: Whoa.
>>Peggy Stewart: And I'm not yet brave enough to get into, like, actual potato carving. So we're usually adding a lot to potato with some minimal--.
>>Joice Chang: Minimal desecration.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah, that's a good word for it.
>>Joice Chang: I see, okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah. So getting a potato to stand up, that's--.
>>Joice Chang: Ooh, getting a potatoes to stand up.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah.
>>Joice Chang: Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: So the last two years we've used kebab skewers and set it up on a little tripod or for the skewers, glue gun those down. So that works pretty well. I think we tried a nail up through our baseboard one year, but the skewers were better and gluing just isn't strong enough. We're using a bigger, like, russet potato most often.
>>Joice Chang: Most often. Yeah, okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: And also, it's such great stories for later.
>>Joice Chang: Yes.
>>Peggy Stewart: I can't think of anyone I've casually mentioned potato decorating to who isn't like, tell me more about this.
>>Joice Chang: And you're telling us about it now. Fantastic.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes. So, this is like, dinner topic conversation for years to come.
>>Joice Chang: Speaking of dinner, what do you do with the potatoes, after the art is complete?
>>Peggy Stewart: Well, this year's, for example, I'm going to eat them.
>>Joice Chang: You're going to eat them? Are they not your babies?
>>Peggy Stewart: No.
>>Joice Chang: In some ways? No.
>>Peggy Stewart: Not at all. [laughter].
>>Joice Chang: But they won you at least a second prize.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes.
>>Joice Chang: Or a first prize? Right?
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes. We got a second place this year. I have lots of photos, documenting.
>>Joice Chang: Lots of photos. Yes. I want to come back and end with the demise of these potatoes. You spent all this time with them, you decorated them. They have become a scene, and you're just going to put them in a pot of boiling water and eat them?
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes.
>>Joice Chang: Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: I'm going to cut off the parts that have had a kebab skewer stuck in them, and then I'm going to eat the rest of the potato.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. And I hope that you have a great time eating those potatoes, Peggy. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Joice. That is a wrap for Tell Me About It, Humboldt, brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. If you want to be featured on the show or have a local guest to recommend, email us at podcasts@humboldt.edu with your idea and check out the show notes on khsu.org for more information about today's topic. Thanks for listening.
Produced at Cal Poly Humboldt.
>>Joice Chang: Peggy, do you want to say a little bit more about the seal potatoes?
>>Peggy Stewart: So, for the flippers that I was talking about, that I was experimenting with, I ended up pressing those like flowers, which I thought were-- I was excited to have thought of that, because it worked out really well. We'd been like trying out, like, felt flippers before, like brown paper bag flippers, and it just didn't look the same.
>>Joice Chang: Right. Because it's not from the same kind of item.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yes.
>>Joice Chang: Yeah.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah. So I was really happy with that idea that I had.
>>Joice Chang: Is there, at least, like a subreddit thread on Humboldt on Reddit that is dedicated to potato decorating?
>>Peggy Stewart: Not that I'm aware of. I haven't looked for that on Reddit. I did do some Googling a couple years ago, and I found some older pictures, I think from 2009 or something.
>>Joice Chang: Wow.
>>Peggy Stewart: But there was not a lot out there.
>>Joice Chang: Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: And the very first year we did potato decorating, we didn't have any examples.
>>Joice Chang: Oh, okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: Yeah, we were making this thing like, what do other people do? We have no idea. And I feel like that inspired us to do an extra good job that first year.
>>Joice Chang: Yeah. I think that's kind of fun, not knowing others have done and not having this preconceived notion of what it's supposed to look like, is really kind of liberating in some way. Do you feel like when you do this in the future, you're going to be inspired by other art or inspired by what you have done previously, or do you feel like those experiences have limited the way you think about?
>>Peggy Stewart: That's a good question. I feel like I have a sense now of, like, the elements that will be difficult to do.
>>Joice Chang: Ah. Okay.
>>Peggy Stewart: So I'm trying to avoid those. Most of the time, if I can do it, I want it to be funny or have, like, a pun in there as well. So I kind of want that element happening. But just thinking about the list of our other, like, 15 or 20 that we have sitting around, I don't think there's anyone like, yeah, I don't think we're building off of, like, previous years or whatnot. We just have an idea that's like, Oh, this would be great for a potato scene.
>>Joice Chang: Okay. That's great. Well, good luck next year and the subsequent years.
>>Peggy Stewart: Thank you.
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Music by Silverman Sound Studios