Scavenger

The food story in tomorrow's New York Times magazine is about how chefs come up with specials, and it's really all the same things you always hear (which means it must be true): what's seasonal, available; happy delivery mistakes; and the one that can make you believe you shouldn't order the pot pie or soup special, because the chef's trying to pull a fast one on you by using up what didn't sell yesterday or the day before and calling it "special."

But that last one, and our empty refrigerator, made me realize something about myself: Given an empty refrigerator, my options of what to fix are only limited by what I can think up and afford, and that paralyzes me. I pile up cookbooks and food magazines on the sofa next to me and start flipping through them, stacking them up, open and facedown. Then I start going through a second time to make a list, and decide that what I have chosen isn't interesting enough, substantial enough, "fall" enough, healthy enough. I really go nuts. I guess that probably says a lot about me.

But I do thrive on a produce drawer full of wilting greens and aging carrots, three-week-old gouda in the fridge, bones in the freezer, sprouting potatoes in the bin. I'm a pantry-forager, a scavenger. I'm inspired by what we have left, what we need to use before it goes bad, like chefs in the old days with their specials. But I think it's kind of like a sonnet: Rules and boundaries and restrictions take away some of your decisions, which gives you freedom to focus on the others, and come up with something truly spectacular. A few generations ago they did that out of necessity, to save money, which I still find can be a good reason for it.

I have a coworker who always goes to her brother's for Thanksgiving, so the next day she and her husband roast their own turkey because they want to have the leftovers. I love that. Maybe next year I'll do it.