"What to Cook this Week?" The spring mix and arugula bags have been washed and mounted on cloth and paper to air dry; the calamansi fruits have been juiced in a mason jar; the Mana Foods wheat baguette cut up sandwich-ready and stored in the ice box (reheating in the toaster frozen bread comes out again fresh and awesome, a practice of extending a product's shelf life I've done since my New York days); and the Bulgarian feta is there, too. What to Cook... is a Times column religiously sent to my inbox, and just like its writer I run the gamut of what I have in the kitchen to concoct for my appetite, combined with the knowledge of recommended recipes, notwithstanding the ken of the cook. I don't waste anything I have or was given me. In home food preparation, I think that's the creative cook's challenge to incorporate into a good meal everything that's there for the humbling privilege to eat well.
I love the discounted prepared food at Mana beginning 6pm found at the hot and cold bars, two buffet stations across from each other. It's practical for solo living to readily eat and mix/match food on the plate with minimal or no heating necessary, especially conducive to your geographic climate, and since Maui is a tropical island with a year-round gorgeous weather, a bought cold asparagus potato salad would be lovely with room-temp creamed polenta greening them up with my salad mix, with a dash of balsamic vinegar. Local fruits are terrific here and sliding on the side of my Mt. Leaves is a papaya boat carrying Kula strawberries. I have two monstrous avocados the size you can't get your fist around, and tomorrow night when they will be perfectly ripe, not too soft all flesh smooth and intact all around, I'm thinking wheat toast with it and a heaping side of feta-greens salad dressed in calamansi vinaigrette (I have a very grassy olive oil, a California reserve, to dot the plate).
Did I say what to cook, or what to eat? Incontrovertible. The extra potato salad in the fridge I will stuff into a baguette with a "relish" of mount leaves. (Back in NYC at this Japanese supermarket near the Schwarzman Library on 42nd and 5th, this sandwich was my comfort food snack, or sometimes breakfast.) One of my finest discoveries on the island is the local-grown, fully adapted to the upcountry ecosystem here, producing delicious, balanced grapefruits. With my potato sandwich and grapefruit as dessert, what a match made in heaven.
What a blessing it is to have everything you need within your reach. It’s quite a challenge when you ask yourself “what to cook” and then when you have it in mind, one ingredient is missing! But with your art and your beautiful kitchen, you turn your greens and yellows and reds into a lovely painting on your plate… a good meal.
❤️💛
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