Leftovers

 

The above salad is NOT what was left over from dinner the other day.  It tasted fresh, and left no aftertaste on the tongue or in the mouth.  Instead, it was the gyro meat (not pictured here) that left a bad taste in my mouth for several hours after dinner, and after having the rest of the meat as next day's leftovers.

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One thing that can be said about me in either Mario or Marian mode is that I travel on my stomach.  Most of the time, my friends can trust that I have an instinct for places that have good food.  Is it because I subconsciously analyze everything going on in and around a restaurant before entering?  Who knows?  But I usually find places which have at least one good dish on the menu.  In the case of Saturday's dinner with RQS, the best thing about it was the desserts - in my case, the Bougatsa at Piato.   

Several months ago, Vicki and I ate at Piato, and were underwhelmed with the food.  Neither of us could put a handle on why the food was underwhelming, but the Bougatsa was fantastic.  Vicki would gladly go back to that restaurant, if the only thing she would eat from there was this dessert.  However, Lefteris still remains our Greek restaurant of choice.  Neither of us have had a bad meal there, and its high quality has become "boring" - at least, until we try a place like Piato.

Now, I'm not knocking Piato.  But I am noting that after eating their food, I had a strange taste in my mouth.  Could it be that I'm allergic to a spice they use?  I doubt it, as I am allergic to very few things.  Instead, I think the food was likely to have been excessively salted.  That could be the logical explanation why I felt very thirsty after eating there.  When I had their leftover gyro meat the next day, I had that strange "taste" in my mouth for several hours.

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There are so many places from where I look forward to eating leftovers the next day.  Many of them serve food in sizes large enough that I can cut the portion in half, and eat it for lunch at work.  (Most of these places are Italian restaurants which serve giant plates of pasta and huge portions of meat.)  Even though I'm not eating out as much as I did before the pandemic, I still eat out more often than the average person.  Hopefully, I'll figure out how to do this in a healthy way which my doctor would approve of....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My refrigerator overfloweth

 

One of the problems in living alone is that it's hard to get enough variety AND small enough quantities of food at a reasonable price.  Either one has to over stuff a refrigerator, or pay too much for the small quantities one needs.  For example, I only need a tiny bit of celery to make a decent tuna salad for sandwiches.  Yet, I always end up wasting food by buying too much to feed only one person.  

What makes things worse is that it's so hard to plan my meals.  I'm lucky that I can buy my lunches at the local supermarket and heat them up in a microwave oven.  But this is not the healthiest thing to do, as I will always end up eating more than I should.  In certain ways, this is a problem not unique to single people.  Most of us are on the go, and don't have the time to do any serious meal planning.  Given that my mother was a horrible cook, she was not the person from whom to learn either cooking or meal planning.  This is where I wish they gave "Home Economics" to both boys and girls when I was of school age.

Over time, I may get the hang of things.  But the one thing I am grateful for is the rotisserie chicken found at many supermarkets and warehouse clubs.  A whole chicken can easily be made into 3-4 meals. And the trick is making at least one of those meals a lunch.  Chicken Salad sandwiches are always a good way to use an "old" chicken.  And I've done this more than enough times over the years.

Well...  Enough for now.   The pork tenderloin that's been in the freezer (and just thawed out) is finally ready to eat.  It's enough meat for two people, but I can always use it tomorrow night - as long as I'm not cooking anything else....