The Short Tempered Chef Makes Breakfast with Leftovers

A leftover by any other name is still food. Something to eat. Sustenance. Grub. And since I don’t like shopping on Sundays, I’ll just rummage through the fridge and pantry to see what I can come up with. I have no prejudices when it comes to breakfast food. Cereal, eggs, meats, fish, turnips, cheese, olives, piccalilli, curry; it’s all the same to me. To misquote Will Rogers: I never met a breakfast I didn’t like.

So lemme see . . . I put some canned tomatoes, frozen country fries, half a white onion, some leftover Thai curry paste, two eggs, a splash of soy sauce mixed with brown sugar and a splash of juice from a jar of pickled herring, some diced ham and a bit of leftover candied salmon in the wok with sesame seed oil. Blasted the whole mess on high heat for a few minutes; now It looks kinda goopy. I’ll serve it over rice with some pickled beets I’ve had in a tupperware container in the fridge for the past two weeks -- they should still be good; I don’t think pickled beets ever go bad.

My breakfast goop turned out okay. Not spectacular, but not offensive either. I think my tastebuds must be more senile than I am -- it’s getting harder to taste things that please my palate, even when I put plenty of spicy stuff in. This meal would have benefited greatly with some hot spicy pickles on the side instead of the pickled beets. Kimchi? Kimchi! That was the missing ingredient. Also, I didn’t have anything to drink in the fridge except Shasta club soda. I should have had orange juice or pineapple juice. Or even squeezed a couple of grapefruit myself for the juice.

I’ve still got a wok full of the stuff -- what to do with it? Can’t impose on the neighbors or the kids. Truth to tell, it looks disgusting. If I freeze it I’ll forget about it and throw it out the next time my daughter Sarah helps me with my housecleaning. Okay, here’s a plan: I’ll put it in tupperware and keep it in the fridge for a few days, in case I wake up real early with hunger and have time to eat before going to the Rec Center to swim.

It’s times like these when I wish I had a dog.