Cook Food

When I was growing up, whenever my mom (who did all the cooking) couldn’t face the task of putting together a regular, organized, main-dish-plus-sides meal, we would do what we called “scrounging”: basically, pulling leftovers and other ready-to-eat items out of the fridge/pantry and assembling a meal. It was fun and meant that each person got to satisfy hir whims, to some extent.

I think the practice is part of what gave me the bug for improvisational, use-what-you’ve-got cooking—which I put to use today.

I’m due at a friend’s party in just a few hours, and due to a rough work schedule this week, I missed all my farmers market opportunities. I didn’t have a lot to work with for a decent pot luck contribution, and all the places to get good fresh ingredients are closed today.

As I pondered the problem and considered just bringing a bottle of wine that’s sitting in my frdge, I remembered: I have potatoes that I got at the market a few weeks ago. And I always have olive oil, and garlic. And surely I can find some appropriate mustard and vinegar in my cobbled-together kitchen (it’s a long story, but most of my stuff is in storage right now and I’m kinda squatting in a not-very-hospitable place). Then I remembered that I even have some parsley that, though it’s probably on its last legs, might have a few salvageable leaves left. Bingo: Germanic potato salad. (Why Germanic and not just German? Well, I make no claims to authenticity, and as a former copyeditor, I’ve gotta be precise. But I digress.)

Here’s what I had:

• About 2-1/2 pounds of small Yukon Gold potatoes (any variety on the waxy side would work well)
• One bunch old parsley (a small handful of the leaves were still good)
• Some spicy brown mustard (I also found Chinese horseradish mustard and some dijon; the latter would also have worked well, but I chose the brown)
• Some white wine vinegar
• Some olive oil
• One garlic clove
• Some salt

And here’s what I did:

• Boiled the potatoes (no peeling!) for about 20 minutes (until a knife slid easily through one of them)
• Minced the garlic and then mashed it into a paste, along with two pinches of salt, with the side of my knife
• Put the garlic in a small lidded jar with about a tablespoon of mustard, a tablespoon of vinegar, two tablespoons of olive oil, and a scant teaspoon of salt; shook it all up
• Minced the parsley
• Cut the potatoes into chunks when they were cool enough to handle; took a shower while I let them cool a little more but not too much (hot foods absorb dressing very well)
• Put the potato chunks in a bowl, poured the dressing over them, added the parsley, and stirred

In an ideal world, I probably would have used cider vinegar instead of white vinegar, and I would have loved to have added a scallion (if I’d had one, I would have sliced it into tiny rings and added it with the parsley, and I also probably would have skipped the garlic). But I made a lovely picnic dish to share without planning ahead and without having to go to a chain supermarket to buy anything processed or grown far away, so I’m damn satisfied.