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The Big Brick Review 2025 Essay Contest: Honorable Mention ($50)

Building on the narrative of our lives...one brick at a time.

Salt Potatoes

by Laurie Ward

AS I PLACED my carry-on bag on the conveyor belt, I knew it would raise eyebrows. The X-ray screen lit up with its secrets: a cluster of small, round shapes and sixteen elongated tubes.

A TSA agent held up my bag. “This yours?”

I nodded, slipping on my Keds. I followed him and another officer to the side. Both were tall and imposing and, even though I did nothing wrong, there was still that teeny feeling of unease in the pit of my stomach. Like when you notice a state trooper behind you on the highway. The officer with the mustache stood with his hands on his hips, chest out, while the other flopped my bag on a metal table and opened the zipper.

Resting on top of my clothes was a five-pound bag of Hinerwadel’s famous salt potatoes. His face gave nothing away as he set it on the table and used his baton to move my clothes and find the flat package, wrapped in aluminum foil and newspaper. Long before lunch bags were insulated, newspaper and foil were how you kept sandwiches and drinks cold. He unwrapped the newspaper and sighed when he saw the foil.

“It’s just hot dogs. They’re frozen.” I said, willing him not to rip the foil beyond use.

He pulled at one corner to see the mustached face of Frank Hofman on the familiar logo, and finally broke a smile. “Bringing a little of Syracuse to someone?”

I nodded. “My brother is in Denver.”

Five hours later, I landed with my cargo intact. As I pulled each item from my bag, my brother laughed; his voice deep, the pauses between the ha ha ha.

Salt potatoes weren’t just potatoes. They were summer picnics and the Great New York State Fair, buttery fingers and laughter.

These were no ordinary hot dogs. The package was a mix of the classic German franks and “Coneys,” hot dogs modeled after traditional white German sausages. Hofmans were baseball games, grill marks, and split casings. They were served best only in New England-style buns, split at the top, not the sides. And written in my grandmother’s tight, neat cursive, the recipe card I brought with me held the formula for the best Rice Krispie treats. No marshmallows and butter in this version—gooey peanut butter and melted chocolate chips on top.

The next day, I stood in his kitchen. As water boiled for the Hinerwadel’s, the Hofmans crackled on the grill. The stovetop was covered in dry, white salt stains, an emotional photobomb of home. In another pot, I stirred the boiling mixture of brown sugar, corn syrup, and peanut butter. Snap, crackle, pop. The cereal sang a sad song as I poured the hot mixture in the bowl.

My brother sat in a chair on the deck. The sun was warm, but the Denver air was cool. He dozed on and off, covered in a blanket. His hair was starting to thin, more gray than I’d ever seen on him. His skin had an orange tint—what he called his “chemo tan.”

We ate on the deck and, with each bite of the buttery potatoes, we were back in our Syracuse kitchen: our mom tying her apron around her waist, the sound of the metal cover sliding off Grandma’s pan full of Rice Krispie treats, the Yankees on the television in the other room, loud enough for us to hear.

I couldn’t stop the pancreatic cancer that would take him eight months later, but I could give him that day and those memories.

Laurie Ward, who grew up in Syracuse, is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in the low-residency program at Hood Collect in Frederick, Maryland, where she is also the vice president for marketing and communications.

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