From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Have you ever noticed that some people are magnets for children? I wonder if children, close to the creation source, instinctively are drawn to those souls whose grand purpose is the nurture of neophytes.

Such choice folk have a specialty; they are empowered with an effortless empathy for youngsters. In turn, these grownups are rewarded by attention from the ones who must crane their necks for tete-a-tete with adults.

That type person recently mailed a gift to my 2 year old granddaughter as a consolation prize in honor of her status change to big sister. The gift arrested her complete attention. Inside a small pink hat box was a crowd of hand knitted finger puppets.

As she pulled each colorful being out of the container, she squealed a laugh of happy discovery until the last one, who we all recognized as a mouse. The mouse, unlike the others, was resplendent in white - white body, white ears, white tail, white whiskers.

And... white granddaughter. She flung the mouse puppet from her tiny hand. “I do not like that one - it's scarey,” she said tearfully.

Well now, to me, that episode explains a lot about the human condition. As much as I would love to think that our evolutionary goal will someday present with international campfire singing and s'mores; we have to admit to the inherent lead of our reptilian brains, the part of us that smacks of survival with cries of 'no breaks for thems that are different'!

Undoubtedly Ms Cook prefers a message of expanding horizons, even so, today I submit a recipe for the survivalist in all of us. The 2 year old harbinger of what is safe and what is not will unconditionally vouch for mashed potatoes, as I am quite sure would the rest of the world.