I am still flailing with the glory of it all, simply flailing. Do you have any idea what I did today, what joyous music and ethereal light broke forth from the heavens over the wondrous discovery I made within the four linoleumed walls of my little kitchen?

People, I shredded potatoes. With my food processor. For. The. Very. First. Time.

Take it in. Breathe deeply. Raise your arms and praise the heavens along with me. I know you want to. Do you feel a little victory jig coming on? Let it happen. I know I did. And if you start squealing, or maybe even hopping, well, you're in good company.

I don't know why this always seemed like such an impossibility. Oh sure, other people could shred cabbage and carrots in their food processor, but me, I just had to julienne the cabbage into tiny ruffly lines by hand until my fingers bled, because their machine was a fancy one that they registered for when they got married, or maybe because they were real food professionals, and me, well, I never even went to cooking school, or, or, I know!, it's because their parents taught them how to ski when they were little, and listened to rock music on the radio and let them eat chocolate every once in a while, that's it, I'm sure of it, I know. Knowing how to shred things with a food processor is, like, a genetic gift.

I can be so stupid. After all, when Ben's mother gave me her Robot Coupe two years ago, along with a set of extra grating and shredding inserts, I had such high hopes ("carrot salad!" dream on, girlie). And then I promptly put them into hiding in my cupboards and made sure they didn't see the light of day since. Oh sure, I made many a pie crust in that thing, and bread and hummus and pesto and meatloaf. But did I even grate a single potato? Nope, non, nein.

Tonight, home before nine for the first time in a week, and on a whim (I had turnips in my CSA delivery, and potatoes, and a recipe on the CSA handout from Martha Stewart for turnip-flecked potato latkes), I finally dug out one of those little metal inserts - so utterly unconvincing and yet also intimidating. Fully convinced it wouldn't even fit, I banged it around on the food processor and then, lo! It snapped into place. Still operating dully in disbelief, and with the motor on, I quartered a russet potato, and slowly dropped it in the feed tube.

That, my friends, is when the heavens opened with the voices of angels. Shredded potatoes! In my kitchen! Look!

Oh, the possibilities. I know, I know - admitting this discovery is probably like when I told you all that I had never really realized the location of my broiler: hu-mi-li-aaaaay-ting. Whatever. I'm over it. The victory jig ensued. There was squealing. And hopping. And more squealing (maybe even yelling). My food processor shreds things! It's a bloody miracle.

Oh, and the latkes? Eh. They were fine - a little sharp from the grated turnip, nicely crispy on the outside, and still soft on the inside. I added an egg to bind them, and kind of wished I could concentrate on something other than the miracle of grated vegetables to figure out what herb to liven these up with (Ben, later, had the genius idea of smearing them with a bit of apple butter, in lieu of apple sauce). If I'm totally honest, I'm not much of a potato pancake kind of girl.

But let's think about this for a second. Who really cares?

My food processor knows how to shred!