What's Left Over?

Sometimes happiness comes from the simplest things.

Saturday was very busy from very early, but one simple thing made me happy.  Sweetie, who was a chef at one time, and who used to swear that leftovers were against his religion, didn't just make his own brunch (which he does many weekends), he used leftovers!

Now around here, he's gotten used to the fact that we don't have the money to throw away food, so anything left over will be served for his lunch the next day.  If there's more left, it will get reused, turned into another meal, until there is nothing left from the original meal to be found.

When he fixes things for himself, though, he's not too keen on using leftovers.  As a chef, all that time ago, he was used to the best and freshest ingredients, and he would still love to be able to use only the finest of everything.  Instead, he's stuck using what we can afford, but he still tries to be fancy.

Not yesterday, when he decided on an omelet.  He made the biggest, fanciest omelet he has ever made, and in it he included everything but the kitchen sink.  Leftover chicken from quesadillas.  Leftover beef from soft tacos.  Leftover sauteed vegetables, leftover spaghetti (!), leftover chopped fresh veggies that hadn't been eaten with the tacos.

He topped it with leftover home made pico de gallo and salsa and he had so much he saved half for today, he couldn't finish it all.

It doesn't look like leftovers to me!

The good thing is, not only does it make me happy to see him getting the hang of using leftovers himself instead of me having to do it, or the kids, but now i have no leftovers!

Tonight, for dinner, a fresh meal, hamburger steaks with gravy, and a few sides that i will decide on as i go along.  And if i have more burgers left over that he doesn't take with him for lunch at work on Monday, maybe i'll even ask him what ideas he has for how to use them.  Which is nice, because after this busy week end, the only thing i think is going to be left over in my brain is cobwebs.




Today is:

Blessing of the Boats -- Whitby, North Yorkshire, England

Champagne Day -- internet generated holiday, probably created by someone who wanted an excuse to celebrate

Coast Guard Day -- US (anniversary of founding in 1790)

Constitution Day -- Cook Islands

Fairy Drying-Out Day -- Fairy Calendar (makes sense, as we washed them yesterday. Now it begs the question, how does one dry a fairy?)

Festival of the Dead; Sunset Ceremony -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Fiestas de la Virgen Blanca -- Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava, Basque Country, Spain; through the 9th

Fiestas Patronales -- El Salvador (through Tuesday)

International Forgiveness Day -- sponsored by the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance

International Friendship Day

Joust of the Quintana -- Asciku Piceno, Italy (reenactment of a medieval jousting tournament)

Loch-mo-Naire Pilgrimage -- Loch mo Naire, Scotland (tonight from midnight to 1am tomorrow is the magical hour, complete the ritual there to be healed by the waters because of magic stones in the water that a Celtic priestess put there)

Matica Slovenska Day -- Slovakia (main Slovak cultural institution, established 1863)

National Friendship Day -- US (designated by Congress in 1935)

National Lasagna Day

Nicole Robin Day -- St. John, USVI (unofficial celebration her safe return, with the crew, to the Virgin Islands after being held by Cubans.)

Single Working Women's Day

Sisters' Day® -- celebrating the bond between sisters, as begun by Tricia Eleogram

Swiss Volksfest -- New Glarus, WI, US (celebration of Swiss Independence Day)

St. John Baptist Mary Vianney's Day (Cure of Ars; Patron of confessors, parish priests; Dubuque, Iowa; Kamloops, BC; Kansas City, KS; Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN)

Vigil of St. Oswald -- Anglo-Saxon holy day, commemorates the day before King Oswald's death in 642

Zuni Corn Dance -- the Zuni Native Americans give thanks to Mother Earth, the Kokos (Nature Spirits), and the Corn Maidens for the maize harvest; through the 7th


Birthdays Today:

Cole and Dylan Sprouse, 1992
Roger Clemens, 1962
Barack H. Obama, 1961
Billy Bob Thornton, 1955
Maurice "Rocket" Richard, 1921
Louis Armstrong, 1901*
Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 1900
Louis Vuitton, 1821
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792


Today in History

The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, 70
A supernova is observed in constellation Cassiopeia, 1181
The first printing of Zohar (Jewish Kabbalah), 1558
A hurricane in the Carribean kills thousands in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Christopher, 1666
Dom Perignon invents champagne (traditional date), 1693
First edition of the Saturday Evening Post, which was published until 1969, 1821
The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home, 1892
The Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens, 1902
The Supreme Court of Japan is established, 1947
The Billboard Hot 100 is founded, 1958
American civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21, 1964
The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso, 1984
Operation Storm begins in Croatia, 1995
Prime Minister Paul Martin announces that Michaëlle Jean will be Canada's 27th Governor General, 2005
California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage passed by the state's voters in 2008, is overturned by Judge Vaughn Walker in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 2010


*In several interviews, Satchmo claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900. Historians always disputed that claim, saying it was too neat and tidy, and his baptismal records, found in a church basement, proved otherwise. Some biographies still give the July 4, 1900 date in error.