Everything Must Go

I'm doing the next book as a gift to my sad, soon-to-be-unemployed self. I've owned  The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna by Lynne Rosetto Kasper for years but never cooked a single dish because they all look so elaborate and extravagant. Perhaps not the right choice for straitened circumstances, but if I don't do something kind for myself soon I may start drinking during the day and you'll never hear from me again. Homemade pasta and the occasional roast capon seem like sound investments in mental health.

But first another investment in mental health. We have to clean out our refrigerator. Too many half-used jars of chili sauce, bags of rice flour, olives, pistachios on their way to becoming rancid, 5-year-old bottles of Madras curry paste. I'm allotting a week and have been making excellent headway. A swathe of crisper reclaimed from sprouting carrots, useless barley flour rendered useful in banana bread, and so on. Exciting times.

 

God, that is depressing.

But I am thankful we have food at all. 

 

The light at the end of the tunnel: tortelloni of artichokes and mascarpone.