ah, leftovers

lately, it seems that every day, when i heat up my lunch at work, someone wanders in and says, ‘oh! that smells good!’ and i usually look at it and think, ‘yeah, it does smell good!’ people seem especially impressed when i bring an ear of corn on the cob. ‘really? you can just cook it in the microwave? huh!’ one day when the kitchen stock at home seemed especially low to me, i ended up packing two slices of bread, some hummus, an avocado and a tomato i swiped off of one of my two pitiful tomato plants (along with some pickled beets and corn on the cob which i ate on the side). i made a hummus, avocado and tomato sandwich and cooked the corn (granted, doing all the prep at work doesn’t make for an especially fast meal, but hey, i’ve got an hour). my co-worker who was eating her supper (a granola bar and a diet coke, i think) and watching all this painstaking preparation on my part asked me if i was vegetarian. i looked at my meal and realized that it did look pretty veggie. ‘nope, just scrounging through the fridge.’

my sister and i, when we were little, invented a dish called “alien casserole” which consisted of a slice of bread, topped by whatever leftovers we found in the fridge and topped with another slice of bread. why it wasn’t an “alien sandwich” i’m not sure, but there you have it.

tonight for supper, i made a tuna salad sandwich, with a side of small dill pickles, cheese curds, pringles (a must have with tuna salad) and cherry tomatoes. realizing that my normal instinct lately when looking into my fridge is “there’s nothing to eat” i thought i had put together quite a tasty meal from “nothing.” i briefly considered a voluntary month-of-no-restaurants as a challenge to myself, but then i thought about all of the great new restaurants i just read about in the annual city review book… and i thought better of it.