Last weekend I found a bag of tiny yellow potatoes and decided I was going to make a potato dish. I looked up “Lyonnaise Potatoes” and found a recipe by Emeril Lagasse and used that because sometimes it’s a week before finals start, you have three research papers due and your brain is too overloaded with dinosaur paleobiology to think of good potato recipes on your own.

After I finished panicking about the sheer amount of work I had, and still have, and taking a two-hour nap, I pulled out a large pot, a baking dish, knives, cutting boards, potatoes, butter, parsley and garlic. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This recipe called for two pounds of normal-sized potatoes, but I only had a 1½-pound bag of tiny potatoes, so I used that instead.

After slicing, I attempted to bring a pot of water to boil, in anticipation of adding the little tubers. The recipe said the potatoes should take 15 minutes. Well, it took an hour and a half. Dorm kitchens are such a joy.

During the lengthy waiting, I chopped up one tablespoon of parsley, meaning I grabbed a handful and thought, “Eh, close enough.” Again, the recipe called for two tablespoons of minced garlic, so I gathered a pile of garlic seemingly twice the size of the parsley. Finally, I attempted to thinly slice four onions, but ended up with tears and uneven chunks.

When the water finally began to boil, I let the potatoes cook for two more minutes, drained them and set them to dry on the side. I poured a tablespoon of olive oil on the sizzling pan, then poured in the garlic and onion, and cooked them for 15 minutes until the thin slices of onion and most of the garlic were nearly burnt. Unfortunately, the bigger pieces of onion were still almost completely raw. I then mixed the ingredients in a bowl and melted almost a complete stick of butter in the pot. Next, I dumped the potatoes in the concoction and stirred until it was a glorious, buttery mess.

Some of the potatoes were a little burnt around the edges. Some of the onions were still raw, and others were completely black. Most of the garlic had been overcooked. Even among its imperfections, the dish’s buttery and garlicky goodness made it worth staying up until midnight.