REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK -- June Casagrande

You know who you are. Each year, you do the same thing: You just

can’t seem to walk through the produce section of the grocery store

without filling up a plastic bag with yams. You don’t know how to cook

them; you just remember something about brown sugar and miniature

marshmallows.

Thinking stops here. As your mind turns to items farther down your

shopping list -- unusual holiday provisions such as mandarin oranges and

sweetened condensed milk -- a strange form of amnesia sets in. The sour

grimaces of children are somehow erased from your memory. The heavy plop

of cold brown mush as it hit the bottom of your kitchen garbage can last

year no longer echoes in your mind. You think only: “Yams! How festive,

how traditionally Thanksgiving!”

Only later, standing in your kitchen, does the fog begin to lift. This

is when you realize that you’re not sure what to do with yams. You’re not

even sure what they are. Are they the same as sweet potatoes, you wonder,

as your hands reach for the potato peeler. (Actually, a yam is a type of

sweet potato, more orange and moist than the ones with lighter-colored

insides.) Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing above a casserole dish

full of rough-cut orange chunks, with lots of peel left on. As if on

autopilot, you reach for the brown sugar and marshmallows, dump them on

top, and put the concoction in the oven -- at what temperature and for

how long you don’t know. Frankly, you no longer even care. You’ve got a

turkey to worry about, a salad to toss and a seating arrangement that,

unless changed, will place drunk Uncle Joe right next to recovered

alcoholic Aunt Alice.

Well, on behalf of myself and all the people who make good yams, let

me say this: Stop! You’re ruining it for the rest of us.

I encounter your victims every year. They’re the ones who, at whatever

holiday gathering I attend, won’t touch my yams. They won’t taste them,

they won’t look at them, they “hate” yams.

I blame you, because my yams can create converts of unbelievers, if

only they taste them. But many are so scarred by brown goo of years past,

they’ll never, ever take that risk again.

I try to tempt anti-yammers with an appealing presentation. My yams

are baked and served in shelled out halves of orange peel. This cute

touch is also designed to foreshadow the flavor experience -- a light,

sweet citrusy taste.

I improvised the recipe, tasting orange yams at a friend’s house when

I lived in Florida. At the time, I was a yam-hater too. But the little

orange cups were too cute to turn down, and once I’d tasted their

contents, I was a believer.

The next year, I tried to mimic the recipe and learned something you,

oh yam defiler, still don’t know: Making good yams is easy.

I peel and chop the yams into large chunks and then boil them. When

they’re soft, I mash them with a potato masher, then add granulated

sugar, light brown sugar, grated orange peel and orange juice to taste.

Just before baking, I mix in chopped walnuts and miniature marshmallows

and spoon them into the empty orange half shells.

They’re different, they’re delicious, and they’re nothing like the

grotesque globs others turn their noses up at every year.So, if you must:

Take my recipe, please. Just stop making it tough for those of us who can

say loudly and proudly: Yes, I yam.

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .