Tonight’s dinner was Spanish-y beans over rice with a fried egg.
Much like most people, I never pour myself so devoutly into a task as when I’m actually supposed to be working on something else. In this case, 10:30 pm, I was trying to rethink everything I know about cooking dinner, when instead I should have been typing up some recipes that are due tomorrow (technically today, Monday).
I think I am the worst procrastinator I know, and if anyone who hires me professionally is reading this post, that means you care enough about me to actually read some of my personal writing, in which case - you deserve to know, too. But I will say, I hit a pretty great stride at the 11th hour more often than not, and these stupid beans are kind of an example.
Tonight’s dinner started as a far cry away from beans, but ironically right next to the beans in my cabinet - I’ve always wondered what canned salmon tastes like, so the other week, I decided to carpe the diem and got some. Tonight, for some reason, was the night I decided to finally experiment with it (the reason was procrastination).
When I drained off some of the liquid and dumped the contents of the can into a bowl, I screamed a little. As I picked through the salmon with my fingers, I was surprised to find skin and some bones, which prompted John to remark “minimal processing” in kind of an impressed tone, although he didn’t even taste any. Partner, schmartner.
As horrifying as that looks (I particularly enjoy the hair on the bottom right edge of the bow), it actually wasn’t bad. I mixed it with mayo, chopped scallion, some celery, white pepper, salt, tasting as I went, until I realized, in my “creative” flurry, that I ended up making what was essentially…salmon salad? It even tasted like canned tuna, just a little more metallic. But otherwise, almost identical to tuna.
I thought about how to make this more interesting. I thought about forming the salmon salad into patties, breading them and frying them. Too much work. I thought about taking some of the rice John had just made and making little breaded patties out of that. Same amount of work, Laura.
I thought about cooking some pasta and making my mom’s classic tuna casserole, except I don’t have cream of celery, but I do have cream cheese and celery and can do some kind of sauce…
I thought about making sushi rolls and including the avocado in our fridge.
I took a portrait of that avocado, which I found in a serendipitously artistic arrangement, and then John made fun of me for taking pictures of the inside of our fridge. I’ll just come out and ask the question we’re all thinking: isn’t he the worst?
Earlier tonight I had watched a video about what different people around the world eat with white rice, and it all looked amazing, hence the rice. There was something that didn’t feel right about putting canned salmon salad over rice, so I packed up the CSS for lunch tomorrow or whatever, and continued to stare into the fridge. If there could have been a thought bubble coming from John’s head at that moment, it would have just been a bunch of question marks. But he didn’t vocalize anything judgy and let me do my deranged thing, which is why I always find myself coming back to that guy in spite of everything.
I was craving flavors I never do, namely paprika and olive oil, and I desperately wanted a fried egg on something, which is odd to me because I could take or leave eggs in most forms except poached and hard boiled. I used to say that I violently hated ketchup, except on a hot dog. And then it was: “I hate ketchup on everything except on a hot dog, on a burger, and I like it with fries.” And then later on I included meatloaf in that list, plus a few other things you normally eat ketchup with, until finally John taught me that I like ketchup, as it turns out.
Anyway, maybe I like eggs too.
I sautéd like 6 sliced garlic cloves and some sliced scallion in a bit of shallot oil I had made for a different recipe earlier in the day. Then I added paprika for a few seconds just to bloom it, then a long, noisy squirt of tomato paste, and cooked that for a few minutes to let it caramelize and get yummy. Then I added a can of great northern beans I had bought just in case of situations like this (chaos), as I don’t typically eat a lot of beans. But here we are - arriving at the extremely novel meal of rice and beans.
I added some water to the beans and let them blurble away, once they were good and hot, I transferred them into something else, and fried an egg in the same pan. I did that cheffy thing to the egg where I tilted the pan and spooned hot oil onto the yolk over and over for no reason other than I was bored.
It all came together in a bowl, and I poked the yolk in the photo just to give my loyal fans some excitement. Clients on photoshoots are always so excited for anything involving a fried egg, because at some point they get to ask me “now can we see a runny yolk moment??” and then they go try to convince people looking at the internet that somehow a runny yolk makes the world better. In the case of my dinner, it ended up being the truth.
Eating rice and beans with an egg for dinner made me feel down to earth and chill, to balance out all the ridiculous meals I cook for myself and post about here, and also the random and very opulent steakhouse dinner I had with my friend Theo last week for no reason at all (hostess on the phone, confirming my reservation: “are you celebrating any special occasion?” me: “uh…wednesday?” - she didn’t laugh.)
In other news, one of my favorite news outlets wrote an article about me, so please read and enjoy.