19 September 2007

My mom and I chatted ...

And she's going to Seattle today to visit my second brother there. She's been looking forward to the trip, although she is very nervous that things won't go right either in terms of the food situation, or a million other things that could go wrong. We caught up on all sorts of little things, and my phone promptly died. Of course it only died after we'd wrapped everything up, but there you are.

Seattle has a very active Food Not Bombs community, where they distribute food three times a week (according to mom), and even have a "Free Market", where people can come and take produce away for free. It's a pretty cool concept, I'd say, to have food that would have been wasted being given out to all takers. Meanwhile, the store gets a fat tax write-off for the donation, so everyone wins in the end. :)

New York is looming large, and I'm nervous because I still haven't bothered to pack. Of course I haven't packed yet; doing so would mean that I'm organised and have my stuff together. Such is not the case, of course. We'll see where it goes, hmm?

Last night, when I got home, I started to unwind. I had a quick snack, I lay down for a bit, and had a fast catnap. Finally, around 6:00 (an hour before Steve gets home), I had a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. I ran out of my room, and checked the fridge.

It was empty.

So there I was, trying to figure out what to make. The first thing I did, which I always do in moments of food crises, is make a pot of rice immediately. The rice cooker is a wonderful tool in taking care of that little step without my worrying about it. I have one of those basic models with a removable pot, a lid, and an on/off button. It keeps the rice warm, but doesn't DING when it's done. Like I said, it's a very basic model, but it does the job every time. That barely took me a minute or two to throw down. Then, I foraged around for vegetables. And realised that we didn't bother buying any, because we'd be leaving over the weekend.

Drat.

Fortunately for me, there are a couple of staples I always have on hand: tomatoes (either tinned or fresh, depending), onions, and garlic. That holy trinity is never far from anywhere I am, because it forms the baseline of so many dishes. Tonight, it would have to be a dish! Fortunately, I have the recipe for Tomato Rice memorised from making it so many times (I hope you're getting the point that I'm not always together when it comes to planning things out on time), and started in on chopping the vegetables, starting with the onions. Once the spices were popped, in went the onions. Once they had a couple of minutes to cook (I was on a time crunch here), I threw in the tomatoes, and let them simmer for a while. By the time they were mostly done, Steve walked in earlier than I'd expected. I sent him out on a really quick errand while I finished things off. By the time he got back (it took him only five minutes), the food was ready, and I could relax again.

Dinner was served.

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