My burden

Wanna be my best buddy? Help me fill in this nagging memory hole:

I once read/heard about someone who played a novel game with their leftovers. The details escape me, but it was like a daisy chain of leftover food: They started with leftover spaghetti which they then used to make a frittata, then the leftover frittata went into breakfast burritos, then the leftover burritos went into...I don't know, something else. On and on it goes. It's like that group poetry game where everyone adds one line and the end is very different from how it started.

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The leftovers innovator intended to keep the game going forever. I recall it turned into an odd compulsion; his significant other didn't love it. Do you know what I'm talking about?? If you provide the right answer, I'll mail you a surplus grocer prize! You are now incentivized, PLEASE HELP ME.

I'll tell you why it's on my mind: I've found myself in a bit of a situation here. I'm playing the leftovers game, accidentally, and I can't seem to break free. Timeline:

1) Right before a recent 10-day trip, we had some baby bok choy in the crisper, on its way out. I had no time to prepare it.

2) I do not give up. The internet informed me you can chop up bok choy and freeze it with no significant impact on quality. Easy peasy.

3) Upon returning, I defrosted the greens, only to realize I'd done a bad job: There were steps I had needed to take beyond throwing chopped choy in a freezer bag. It was now quite mushy, unpleasant even.

4) I do not give up. We had a bunch of carrots in the crisper, so I thought the firmness of shredded carrots could uplift the mush in a spicy slaw.

5) Lacking fresh jalapeños, I used pickled banana peppers in the dressing, plus like a quarter cup of pepper brine. Finished product? Gross! Suffused with an icky, godless tang, not to mention that the slimy bok choy texturally overpowered the carrot matchsticks.

6) I do not give up. I thought stir-frying the slaw with some chicken sausage and leftover jasmine rice could mask the unpleasantness of the slaw. Wrong-o. Still bad, but now I have A LOT more product on my hands.

Now I give up. My next thought was to add eggs or chili crisp, but no: I can't keep compromising perfectly good ingredients in service of this slop pile. The daisy chain ends now. Abby is out of town this week, and my plan is to eat all the ungodly slaw-fry before she returns. My noble burden.

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Jesse

Featured Items

Aidells was originally a San Francisco sausage mainstay, helmed by a jolly-looking dude named Bruce. One of my Bay Area buddies remembers his parents sending him shopping at Aidells back in the '80s, when the butcher shop was located in a rugged neighborhood (long since gentrified). "Walk fast, don't talk to anyone!" they told him. Now Aidells is a global titan, bought by Sara Lee in 2011—Bruce himself seems to be chilling.

The surplus grocer offers Aidells sausages quite often. I like them just fine, though there's a disconcerting springiness to the texture—you can't remove the skin or break up the insides in a pan. Still, they're tasty enough, and the above variety had generous chunks of feta embedded within. All this to say: I'm sad I wasted good sausage in the cursed slaw.

I have bought more Goya rice at the surplus grocer than any other item (Hebrew National hot dogs and Canada Dry seltzer are the only close competitors). They always carry it, and at the beginning of the pandemic, I went all doomsday prepper about stockpiling rice (until we ran out of cabinet space). I still have mixed feelings about buying this product—there are ample reasons to boycott Goya. And yet, it feels like the surplus grocer offers a unique set of consumer considerations. It's end-of-the-line food, possibly wasted otherwise; as such I'm willing to hold my nose and buy Goya or Publix or factory-farmed chicken. Not sure if this is the ethically upright position!

I could always buy this instead. Seems like a chill brand.

Lest you think the surplus grocer only tends to human needs, let me introduce you to a product we refer to as "Lola's food logs." For the unfamiliar, it's kind of a bougie, all-natural dog food found in the refrigerated section, for puppers who are too good for chunks in gravy. We would never buy food logs for their regular price of 7+ dollars, but at $2 a pop we simply must pamper our pooch!

You should see Lola when it's food log time - she does that thing where she hops around on her back legs like a bouncy little human. Can you put a price on that? (Yes: two dollars.)