Red Things

Gainesville

Good day today. Maybe it was because I laid out my clothes last night? After I typed that, I went and laid out my clothes for tomorrow.

Good day despite it being a bad night. Determined to get to bed earlier, I went down at 1:00. And was still awake at 3:00, the more usual bedtime. The sleep that followed was broken and littered with disturbing dreams. Made myself get up at 9:30, and will try again for 1:00 tonight. We'll see how that goes.

Got the house blessed-- yay! Hardly ever get it done on Monday, which is the target. Got the usual Monday towel change/launder done.

Last Wednesday we had what I thought was a perfectly dreadful crock pot pork thing in a strange molasses-based sauce. While purging the fridge on Saturday, I told Bill I was going to toss the rest of it unless he wanted it. He said it wasn't all that bad, and why didn't I make a salad out of it? I used to use leftover meat this way a lot in years past, but not in the past 4-5 for whatever reason. I was surprised to learn he like them.

Tonight I took that dreadful pork and its sauce and made a spectacularly wonderful main dish salad with what I found in the fridge. Of course, I'll never be able to duplicate it, since it was entirely ad hoc, but for the record, it included green and red papper strips, celery slices, diced carrots, radishes, scallions, grilled eggplant, sliced cooked snow peas, a few handfuls of sliced cabbage, and of course the dreadful pork, diced... later I thought of other things I could have tossed in, but it was enough. For dressing I did the usual ad lib of sour cream, Dijon mustard, Worcester, rice vinegar, and-- an inspired touch as it turned out-- some of the awful molasses sauce, but with a substantial bit of the hot sauce I'd forgotten to add to the original pork recipe. You see why this is a one of a kind dish?

It has inspired me to add the ad hoc main dish salad back into the regular rotation. Too bad that it's too late to save the rib roast, which got tossed because I couldn't decide what to do with it. Next time I do one of those, the salad will be a viable option for the leftovers.

Thanks for transcribing the rest of that letter of mine, Mom. I vividly remembered fixing that Italian meal for Nan and Ralph, but had forgotten about the New Years Day meal for Lee and Bonny-- just that I'd previously done something similar for someone as a warm up. Wish I could remember how I did those carrots. I've thought of them many times but have lost the thread of what they were and how to do it. I no longer have the patience or passion to attempt Frutti di Mare in any form, alas.

I should add to last night's post that when I realized I'd just seen Lee Shiflett at the ALA exhibits in Orlando a few years back, I spun on my heel and went back and stood in front of him and just stared at him. He recognized me, we had a nice reunion and chat, but were both booked up for the conference. We keep in touch via Christmas cards and email.

What's a Red Lobster Biscuit? I assume something from Red Lobster.

And speaking of red things, my roasted beets still languish in the back of the fridge. Tomorrow it will be three weeks. Are they gone beyond salvation?