Epiphanies = Being an infant at 29

This is something that, if you cook, you probably already realize. Let me preface this by saying that I've never been a short-order cook nor have I ever taken a cooking class. I love food and I love cookbooks...I've cobbled together what I know through trial and error. Today, I came to understand what must be doled out in the first day of any culinary experience of value: dual-usage.

Three days ago, we had P&M over for dinner. I decided to make pasta with a meat sauce. I tried something new (after sauteing the meat, onions and garlic, I added a cup of chicken stock with the spices and let it all simmer until the liquid had evaporated). This resulted in the best red sauce I'd ever made...and, as usual, I'd made way too much. My first thought was to make more pasta for the sauce. However, after a trip to Costco and returning with way too much meat, I decided to use the sauce to pour over some chicken. It was a Chicken Marsalas sort of dish after I added Feta to the sauce and covered the casserole with cheese at the very end. Holy crap, did it work out nicely!

But here's my deal: this is the first time that I've used a 'sauce' for two drastically different dishes like so. I was blown away by my 'innovation' at first but then I realized how my Mom used to do this sort of thing...and it was called 'leftovers'. Not in the 'I-had-Thai-last-night-and-these-are-my-leftovers' sense but as in the 'use-what-you-have' way. I'll be honest, I love cooking and have for as long as I can remember. As far back as being in my single-digits and making peanut butter cookies with my mom. But, for some reason, using what you had on hand hadn't sunk in until tonight. My Mom always seemed to have on hand what was needed to make a dish but, as I realized in a flash tonight, it wasn't that she had this or that specifically on hand; she simply used what was at hand and made do. Christ, I'm a slow learner...

S.