Senators dish on how they like their spuds

Earlier this week ITK reported on the push by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) to keep lunch ladies serving up spuds in schools.

 New guidelines from the Department of Agriculture would cut the amount of potatoes, and other starch-filled vegetables, served in school cafeterias. They would also completely eliminate potatoes, which are grown in abundance in the senators’ respective states, from the breakfast program.

 

So we just had to ask the spud-loving senators how they prefer the potatoes they’re so passionate about. 

 Collins tells us her potato dish of choice is roasted potatoes, but not just any ol’ oven-roasted spuds. Collins prefers her taters “cut up but with the skins left on, and baked with a little olive oil in a hot oven until they are browned.” The junior senator, who used to pick potatoes as a child, says she also loves “baked potatoes with a little no-fat Greek yogurt on top.”

 Udall is also a fan of the good old-fashioned baked potato, adding that he eats it all, including the skin. 

 “That’s the best part,” he says.

 He harkens back to his days as a mountain climber and head of Outward Bound for his other fave potato-tastic recipe. While attempting to climb to the top of one of the world’s most treacherous mountains, his team dined on the boiled fingerling variety. “Our Sherpa hosts and we cooked potatoes and ate them with our fingers at the base of Mount Everest,” he said.

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