Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Liking Leftovers

Buffy has been craving Richard’s recipe for avocado soup; she told me to tell him that he needs to come down and fix it for her. Since Richard didn’t sound like he was game for making the trip, I bought all the ingredients while shopping with Miya, as avocados were on sale for seventy-five cents each.

I then had fourteen of the pimply green egg-shaped orbs, all needing pitting and peeling. My kitchen cleaners at Scott’s house had gone back to their real lives of school and work, so I took my groceries to Gayle’s. After much pulverizing with Gayle’s ancient food processor, we were able to taste the final product of the recipe, adapted for several different dietary designs.

Gayle doesn’t like cilantro and can’t have dairy. Chuck loves cilantro and dairy, but I substituted light sour cream for the prescribed crème fraiche in deference to Buffy's calorie concerns. Both Gayle and Chuck liked their versions of the vegetable puree. When Buffy returned from work, she requested a topping of tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, and red onion. She also decided against a dollop of light sour cream, and ate it cold -- like gazpacho.

I’m thrilled that tonight is leftover night at Scott’s party place. Spicy boiled shrimp, Beautiful Buffy’s Perfect Potato Salad, made with the potatoes boiled with the shrimp, a few barbeque ribs, a couple of salisbury steaks – what a bountiful buffet of supper choices. We can begin with the avocado soup, or we can add some of the seafood to the soup and create an entirely new decadent dish.

Scott liked Rachel’s recipe chocolate cake so much he expressed hope that it came from a boxed mix; this way he could easily prepare it. Maybe I should make him a mix with Miya’s help. Then, he could add the wet ingredients and bake it at will. Or maybe I should keep some secrets from him to hedge my bets on continuing the warm welcome I receive as a visitor.

The weather here is mild, though somewhat overcast. We know the temperature is perfect when the gnats are so thick we can barely see through them. As Scott says, “It’s too bad the gnats like the same weather we do.” Maybe I should get Richard and Jack to mail me some of Cotton’s cure for gnat attacks, horse mint from the mountains. Of course, I think it’s only a matter of time before Scott encloses his back yard in screen, like so many of the mansions in Florida. My boy’s back yard is never the same for any two summer seasons.