leftovers, several times removed

I am currently at this very minute nibbling the absolute finally! last of an item left over from a recipe (when you live alone, all your recipes seem to dribble out into forever) fixed several days back (second time have tried it now) and combined with the most wretched eyeing of several other refrigerator squats.

As a category for food, I loathe leftovers. Some there are that are still able to be fit into a second meal most lovingly and I long for the day’s end so that I can get home and eat them all over again, but most foods these days are so old by that second setting that I cannot stand the thought of even looking at them.

Whether that is the fault of my refrigerator, how old food is by the time we buy it, or other nefariousnesses that I have not yet guessed, I am powerless in their sway. Nothing keeps now!

And I’ve tried to manage. Frozen, rather than canned. Fresh, rather than frozen.

And so on.

Having just finished The Glass Castle, I might add that things there are that people who are hungry have eaten that you do not want to know.

Maybe it is that I just have become too accustomed to being hungry, and ignore at will. A certain appreciation for hunger is indeed requisite to dining well, or sufficiently.

In any case, I made bits of the wee bite of leftover sardines (I kid you not, and it almost had an anchovey kind of flavour, and was minus the hair) to add to the rapidly dying bag of salad, and added it to what was left from a recipe I have enjoyed twice now (and I don't think I had too many leftovers the first time I made it), and which I will add below.

I sent it to my daughter after I tried it the first time, and I believe she allowed that it looked interesting and she might try it some time: you see why I must resort to posts about the recipes I try, in hope of getting someone as excited about them as I am!

Or perhaps you don't. So I must explain that anything less than the effusiveness by which I live is most pallid discouragement, to my most effusive personality and (what must be supposed) way of thinking. 

And daughter is a most cool cucumber of a cerebral sort of gal.

Besides which, how many daughters take seriously anything Mom has done?

But I must copy the recipe without photos, and without my pretty new idea of a special (and specially mismatched) new dishes.

To make too much of a production of something guarantees it won’t get done, when you work forty hours a week and upon occasion, hit the weekend tired of it.

As much as from it!

Seeing how little one can do, that first day after, becomes a thing of much joy. 

Tomorrow, it is hoped that I will attempt my first recipe with photographs and dishes...

There. Breathe. If I do, I shall, and if not...

No one will whimper but a wee Wren.

I added the last of my pretend olive oil (which is to say. It says it is 100% extra virgin olive oil but we all know now that doesn’t really mean 100%) and a bit of red wine vinegar (and, oh dear. Does that mean…) to the sad sack of salad, with the sardines and the leftovers from the original recipe—and homemade that very instant croutons, courtesy two slices of leftover deli bread (I am thinking also from the recipe into which I tossed all; it was a hoagie recipe, and I still have a loaf or two of the mini-loaves from the deli that I bought—ten of them, I think it was—at seventy-eight cents each, markdown, and froze; this was one of them) that I quite properly cubed then toasted in the smallest amount of oil imaginable…

Then let cool a moment while I finished a post at another blog. (In real time, that would be perhaps a good twenty minutes, but I was at final edit, and had been for some very long two or three hours.)

But, all that noted, the recipe follows. My commentary is inserted throughout, bracketed in with italicized print.

Err, buon appetito! (As if that will mean what I think it should!) You won't have any leftovers, so don't worry about all my meandering, above.

Italian Vegetable Hoagies

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/italian_vegetable_hoagies.html

4 servings | Active Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion, separated into rings

1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, rinsed and coarsely chopped
[NOT pickled artichoke hearts; and don't skip the chopping; I did, second time I tried it and it was much better when the little quarters are chopped]

1 medium tomato, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
[I used red wine vinegar the first time, which I think was the superior of the two]

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 16- to 20-inch-long baguette, preferably whole-grain
[I used a mini-deli loaf; see below]

2 slices provolone cheese, (about 2 ounces), halved 
[I never added the cheese; scattered a bit of parmesan, first time, but liked it better without cheese]

2 cups shredded romaine lettuce 
[I recommend leaving this out]

1/4 cup sliced pepperoncini (optional)
[I tried this both ways and hand-sliced the peppers from a jar of most delightful pickled Greek Tuscan peppers (or, for the more plainspoken amongst us, banana peppers); can't say that it added anything. They might have been more delectable nibbled as one partakes of a most excellent repast, as is said.]

Preparation

1. Place onion rings in a small bowl and add cold water to cover. Set aside while you prepare the remaining ingredients. 
[I changed the water three times in the 20 min. period – nicely took off the onion bite.]

2. Combine artichoke hearts, tomato, vinegar, oil and oregano in a medium bowl. 
[I let mine marinate for a good half hour before assembling as a sandwich; would recommend, after this marinade, draining through a colander.]

3. Cut baguette into 4 equal lengths. Split each piece horizontally and pull out about half of the soft bread from each side. Drain the onions and pat dry. 
[I had a mini deli loaf – they are maybe eight by four by three - sliced it lengthwise; stuffed, then cut into vertical sandwiches of about an inch across. O delight! ]
[Hmm. Skipped completely that 'pulling about half of the soft bread from each side.' As if I would waste good bread! No wonder I had artichoke hearts flying everywhere.]

4. To assemble sandwiches, divide provolone among the bottom pieces of baguette. Spread on the artichoke mixture and top with the onion, lettuce and pepperoncini, if using. Cover with the baguette tops. Serve immediately. 
[Delete the parts I deleted, above, and add fork and several napkins: very messy – but most delicious! ]

out into the city

Yesterday, after writing at length in my journal about a matter to be set in as a post at another blog, I headed out into the city. I needed to shop for some items I will be using in conjunction with this blog. On the city transit, to go out for any reason is a full day endeavor, but with the holiday, I had a three-day weekend, which, in theory, gave me two days yet to write.

So my one stop planned to a local Salvation Army I discovered not so far (in city terms) from my apartment a few weeks ago could be (and was) undertaken with much relish. Ended up waiting an hour after I got to Five Points on the train, and paced through most of it. An interesting couple came up a few minutes before the bus finally arrived. He was a redhead, and carried a much-used red sleeping bag rolled up (without, I noted, folding it in half, lengthwise, before he rolled) and carried on his back.

Both the young man and the girl carried knapsacks and were dressed in bright smiles and road rags. Seemed fresh for the journey and quite at ease. The girl waved another bus down when she saw a man running as if his life would end to catch it. Having sat there for a good ten minutes, it was not mindful to stopping for a latecomer. But did.

I thought of asking to photograph and interview them but fortunately the bus arrived before I could do more than dream of being that sort of woman. But then, on the bus, ended up having a most delightful chat with a young Georgia Tech grad student from China, who has been in Atlanta since August. We got off at the same stop then headed in different directions.

I had already done some preliminary shopping toward my new idea of posting recipes herein; I think it was last week that I stopped by Pier One (my disposable income is mere trifle, but that is another story), where a great many pieces were 75% off. I have a plan in mind to continue adding pieces to my idea, but in that cautious manner that a discipline of poverty (whether intentional or set upon one by circumstance) demands.

Living most cautiously, to be sure, can allow a careful consumption, outside of the stark necessities of a small life. I am collecting odd plates and bowls and serving pieces, and have a new place mat, napkin and even a napkin ring in which to make most bright and lovely (and deliciously mismatched) place settings.

To be sure, each will be a special event.

'Everyday' will remain plain brown Wren. Which tends to be very used Pfaltzgraff (or some odd pieces of hotel white from when Borders changed cafes—that would be before they bottomed up—and gave the old settings to whoever wanted). I have an odd collection of thrift store place mats that I set on a bamboo tray, then I typically grab a paper towel rather than a dinner napkin (and these would be paper) then head to my bed.

My apartment is too small for a table and chairs, although I have long thought I could set one of those three piece cafe sets in the bedroom, just off the kitchen...

A tiled set, with the high bar chairs...

Or I could completely upend my computer and work area, moving it to the bedroom (which is very large) and set the tiled cafe table that I dream of buying in the living room...

In any case, all is dream. Three years now of dream!

More often than not, every day moves me to consider leftovers put up if they are set into the fridge in the pan in which I cooked them, and really, lid is optional.

You probably didn't need to hear that, and can likely see why a little bit of special is most needful.

And why it should be a special that is special indeed!

And resplendent in an overflow that will affect not only how I eat but what I eat, set as I am now on finding recipes again—too, it will spill over into many places, the global of which does not stop at 'taking better care of myself.'

But goes into that place wherein the very spirit is nourished.

Because...

That thing of joy...

I stopped to photograph the new pieces this afternoon as they sat on my coffee table (which was badly in need of a wash) in the sun. Here is a cropped photo of some of them, still with their thrift store tags (the napkin ring sports its 'brand new' tag from Pier One) and deeper in shadow than such bright sunlight would have suggested.

I don't know what the little square plates are but assume maybe an olive plate or tapas.

Which, to be sure, is the same thing. More or less. But—I am playing house now, so can call them whatever my wee heart shall choose. And use them thusly! However I choose!

Ah, such freedom, there 'midst all the loveliness.

where I think it might be going

Because I really don't know where this one is going...

But it started, really, with the Psalm, and the hope at another of my blogs to create a space for some of my work that had been published at still another blog...

And then the background came up. Suddenly. It was there. One of Isobel's photographs, and I knew it had to be the background for a blog.

I had to create a blog, just for that background. I knew then that 84.3 and the background had to be linked.

Along the way of that, I realized that I have one other voice in me that does not have voice. An everyday voice. So I think perhaps this will be that voice—yes, memoir, but in that lazy fashion of a live lived amidst recipes cut out and strewn through a drawer (or now, saved from on-line sites) that fascinate but are never tried, a cloche knitted (and then another) (and both with one hole in the pattern that wasn't supposed to be there), a pretty dress, a dream...

A love.

Little snippets of everyday.

And then, perhaps, like another blog I ran across and found most delectable (although filled with foods I would never try to cook; enough to look at them, and enjoy)—maybe I will learn to try these new ones I am finding (and maybe some of the old), and photograph (like the other blog did) the results...

All the while adjusting a tweak here, a bit there. And sketch out and rewrite all the possibilities and different directions herein. 

A recipe box...

But more. Small things that give beauty. Movies or books. Random moments. Small and everyday and made up of 'girl things.'

And, to be sure, the devotional and other writings for which 84:3 was originally designed (but never used) at the other blog...

Yes. I think I can do that. My mother used to quote the line from Keats. And I, in turn, quoted it often to my own.

I wonder if they remember it as marvelously as I do—tinged not just with its essential meaning but overlaid always with the woman who said it to me...

And thus a directive to how to live—and to life itself.

Mothers are the guideposts to how to live. Fathers, too, yes. But here in this moment, I rise up and call her blessἐd who pointed me to this moment.

This new path.

And yes, all paths that I have trod.

first post

the small thought to beginning