I was at the stove yesterday morning, making myself some breakfast, poking and prodding with my spatula. One of my daughters sidled up and looked at the pan.
“Ooh. You should take a picture of that and put it on your blog.”
Now it has never occurred to me to share any of my cooking, er…, expertise, other than scribbling the odd recipe for someone on a scrap of paper. While the cooking around this house can be described as somewhat more creative than usual, this morning’s creation of mine was essentially leftovers. And not even my leftovers.
Food sites are a such a big thing on the Internet. While I don’t follow any of them, I will linger a bit if I chance to run across one. Great ideas. Wonderful pictures. I will, of course, immediately rush to the computer to chase down any culinary information I can’t find in my usual collection of cookbooks - the ones crammed full of little bits of paper with handwritten instructions, recipes torn from newspapers, and the like.
What are the key ingredients in jerk seasoning? How do you fold a tamale wrapper? What’s the recipe for that gumbo they serve at Disneyland? Is the right order salt-tequila-lime or lime-tequila-salt? Where can I watch a rerun of one of Jamie’s cooking shows?
When I find what I’m looking for, I’ll print it out or jot down some notes. Then tuck it inside the cover of one of my cookbooks. A recent Lifehacker survey indicates that people, even computer geeks, still prefer paper-based recipe files to computer-based ones. From the stains on my recipe collection, I can understand why. That little netbook would quiver in fear sitting on the counter next to my bowls, utensils, and ingredients.
I’m pretty good with leftovers and, if I were to turn to blogging about food, cooking with leftovers might be a good focus. Breakfasts too. (Usually I’ll either skip breakfast or make a production of it – neither scores nutritional points, I know.) Which brings me back to what I had steaming on that pan yesterday morning: leftover dirty rice (already a concoction of what’s-on-hand ingredients) – and an egg.
It’s my belief that anything with an egg next to it is breakfast. Or on it; in it; around it. Traditional bacon and hash-browns. Yesterday’s dinner. The last tidbits of something tossed into an omelet.
If it’s still morning, go look in your fridge, find something in there looking lost and forlorn and match it up with an egg – any style – and enjoy. Mmm-m-m..! Heaven! Now, doesn’t the rest of the day look so much better?
Bon appetit…!


his straight razor. (I just always knew he was going to dispatch the guy in the chair. I could never expose my throat to some cold-blooded stranger with a straight razor. But I’m getting off topic.) But before he started shaving, he’d run the razor back and forth along a flexible strip of leather, known as a strop. You’d usually see it hanging on or near the chair.
ng direction), first one way and then the other, restores a keen edge to the blade.


I tossed the paper aside and randomly opened up another one. “The Joys of Funemployment” teased the headline. It was an article about how some casualties of the crumbling economy are turning lost jobs and unemployment lines into a time of career reassessment and creation of creative businesses – a combination of work and fun: telecom employee to graphic designer, sales manger to jeweler, school administrator to baker. Funemployment.
Our motorhome has never been short of interesting spices and condiments. (Or books, but that’s another story.) Margaret can rustle around under the kitchen sink for a few moments and come up with the most amazing and obscure flavourings. When I’m cooking at home and don’t have the proper ingredients, I’ll head out to the driveway, where we park the motorhome, and yes, there I’ll find what I want.