Leftover Salmon? Avocado? Bread?

Avo-toast with extra protein. Salmon is great cold, so it's worth making more than you can eat in one sitting-- as long as you don't over cook it. Just-done-enough salmon tastes much better (I think), and will taste better the next day if you decide to re-heat it. 

Lots of freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of salt, and a squeeze of lemon.

Project 365 Abandonment // Chilaquiles de Catalina

The first time I ever had chilaquiles was during a student leadership conference in high school. We were at UC Santa Barbara, where we got a taste of dorm living and commons eating. And those first chilaquiles have always stuck with me. During a trip to Catalina Island last year, I decided to try my hand at making them myself:

Leftover tortillas, eggs, cheese, leftover salsa.

And I've decided to abandon my 365 project, at least until this period of transition and absorbing new surroundings is over. I'm still cooking, eating, and growing, and it is all delicious.

The Art of Leftovers // Shortrib Taco

Inspired by a combination of my mama (who is the champion of making leftovers new again) and Roy Choi.

The situation: Leftover shortribs from my roommate's Memorial Day barbecue, toasted sesame seeds, my mama's home-pickled mustard greens (home-grown by my papa), sriracha sauce, and tortillas that desperately needed to be eaten.

I chopped the shortrib into little pieces and tossed them into a hot pan to get those crispy edges I so love a la carne asada. I threw the bones into the pan, too, in hopes of getting some marrowy flavor out of 'em.

Toasted the tortilla directly on the gas flame until tender and just barely starting to char, added chopped meat, chopped pickled greens, sriracha, and sesame seeds. And didn't even have to log on to Twitter, drive anywhere, or stand in line. Nom.

A Poem About Leftovers

I mostly write at Long Cool Hallway these days, so I've badly neglected this here blog, but that's the nice thing about the Internet: things can languish here unattended for extended periods of time and then be resurrected! Or tossed a bone once in long, long while.

I'm going to try to post here more. Because I do, I do, I do still have a great love for food.

Let's kick off 2010 with a poem about leftovers (original here) inspired by my now-and-then work as banquet server:

The Rest Goes



I used a heavy silver fork to push
half-eaten filet mignon, lobster,
scallops, halibut
into a large round trashbin,
their respective sauces
swirled together with the discarded
swizzle sticks, lemon twists, lime wedges

the bin became a cornucopia of scents:
cream mixed with Crown Royal,
Bearnaise with Grey Goose,
citrus juice and Red Bull,
red wine and chardonnay and champagne–
the aroma of what money can buy,
what money can throw away.

I think about how my mother
was always so careful to pack up uneaten food,
her stories about starvation,
how she lived for years on
thin rice gruel and what she could forage.

After the Khmer Rouge regime finally fell,
after years of working nine, ten, twelve hour days,
after years of being able to afford
more than enough food to feed our entire family,

she still does not waste a grain of rice, a slice of beef,
always ready with a plastic container, a sheet of foil, a plastic bag,
she remembers what it was to want

With every porcelain plate whose
decadent leavings I pushed into that bin, I cringed
wondering what my mother would think.

It makes sense now
that expensive, “high-end” food
comes in such tiny servings–
the rich rarely take home doggy bags.

--

And all my online presences are now connected even more obviously. I'm going to be optimistic/positive about this.