Where Ideas Come From

I like to read new cookbooks from the library. I can spend a day or two thumbing through the pages, making up my mind whether it's a book I'd like to own.
Boy, have I saved a lot of money this way.
The last book I didn't have to buy was written by someone whose heyday in the cooking world was a few decades ago, and even though his/her newest effort (neat trick, eh, keeping his/her identity a secret) has been well received, it just struck me as a teensy bit frumpy.
I don't clamor for ultra-modern recipes. I love my old, dowdy cookbooks. But this one was an encyclopedic bore, so back to the library it went.
Whereupon I checked out another fat, new cookbook, this one a collection of recipes from a food magazine I don't even like. I haven't thumbed through it completely, because it, too, bores me. But I did get one good idea from it, which I have transformed here so completely, you'd never be able to guess which book the idea comes from. (See, I'm nice that way, not wanting to trash people in public. Oh, no. You're right. I'm not always nice.)
Anyway. It's a big, one-skillet potato pancake. What a neat thing! I made mine from grated white- and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes instead of "real" russet potatoes. There's a grated onion in there too, along with a beaten egg and salt and pepper. Fried on both sides, then topped with a medley of butter-roasted fruits (fig, peach, pear, apple) and sliced radishes (so yummy when they're cooked in butter). Then crumbled goat cheese over it all before a quick lick of the broiler flames.
It's not desserty at all, not even close, and it bears no relation to the recipe that gave me the idea, other than the fact that some potatoes were shredded for a big, one-skillet pancake.
Cranky called it a Sweet Potato Pizza in a Pan.