Thursday, April 06, 2006

Thanks for All the Weird Lunch

Last year, when I lived with the lovely Sarah Gardam, I would often come downstairs to find her sitting at the table. When asked what she was doing, she would reply, "Oh, eating a weird lunch" and then laugh at the ridiculousness of her own food. Upon closer inspection I would find that it was usually some sauteed vegetables or beans wrapped in a tortilla. The lovely Sarah Gardam loves her tortillas with vegetarian leftovers in 'em; she thinks it's exotic because (like me) she didn't grow up with too many tortillas in the house. My personal favorite was when she made too much veggie curry an ate curry burittoes for what seemed like weeks.

A few days ago, I noticed some canned tomatoes and corn that had been in my pantry for months, so after a trip to the grocery store, I decided to combine some of the items to make dinner. In Troy, I bought cans of "tomatoes, corn and okra" all together and would use it for soup and stuff, so after getting some frozen okra at Whole Foods (only place to get it here in Madison) I recreated the afore mentioned combination. Now I don't know what it says about me that I'm imitating canned food from home except that I'm a grad student and I miss tomatoes and rice. The combination was quite good and proved to be an effective way to get vegetables in my system, but I seem to be losing the battle of eating all of the stuff. Just a can of this and that takes a long time to eat when it's just you. And I know Laura is wondering what in the world her crazy Southern roommate has been eating, but she has not asked. That's how I know she thinks I'm crazy...she usually asks.

But for all of you who eat Weird Lunch/Dinner sometimes, may I make a side dish suggestion: Cheese Toast. Sounds simple, but wow does it dress up strange canned food conglomerations. I do recommend cheddar cheese on wheat bread, but you can surely find a bread and cheese combination to suit your specific weird lunch ingredients. Sarah and I consider cheese toast to be much more than a side dish; to us, it's a food group, and a vitally important one to us grad students.

3 comments:

Kate said...

Last fall, when Dominic was gone at survival school, our neighbors moved and left us with two boxes of frozen Texas cheese toast. It was the nastiest, greasiest stuff. I ate, like, four of them a day. They dressed up canned dinners real nice like, too.

Dominic and I still have black beans and rice pretty regularly. Courtesy of you...courtesy of Dale. I've started putting in a can of diced tomatoes with them too. Oh, deliciousness.

Brooke said...

Yes...the diced tomatoes are a good addition to black beans. And the recipe that has been passed down from Dale's his ex-girlfriend's aunt or something is becoming world famous.

Dale said...

Actually, I think it was ex-girlfriend's girlfriend's mother, but I'm not sure.