It Begins

Kenny Shopsin and I have a lot in common actually, once you get past our respective middle-aged Jewish male and middle-20s Asian female-nesses. At days end we are both largely optimistic curmudgeons with overactive imaginations and painstakingly refined judgements who will only cook food for people we like, serving dishes that contain all the things we like. Am I feeling like avocados and chorizo and mango and quinoa? I will make that a risotto with mango jam on top. What have we got in the fridge? I guess tonight it's asparagus, egg and smoked gouda brat-rittos. Is there a danger of a dish turning out inedible? I've got a big spectrum of "edible". Plus I like all those things! Just mash them together with crossed fingers and ingenuity.

Anyway. My man and I have lived in Chicago for coming on 3 years now, and in those three years I have accumulated a lot of delicious crap in my cupboards. And now we're moving. To NYC! I'm going to grad school. So we will be poor! Which doesn't mean we're not going to eat deliciously, is the hope. But it does mean 14+ hour days and $100k+ of debt, so a little Shopsin juice is called for.

I took inventory of my cupboards today and there's all manner of crazy crap up in there. Prawn crackers and sesame powder and green tea jelly and pumpkin puree and lots and lots of sardines. The goal is to use it deliciously, learn how to better save money, start actually keeping track of the food I buy (how long has that soybean pudding been in there? why do I insist on coming home with 12 extra things of dubious origin that I have no use for?) and TRY TO EAT EVERYTHING. Uh, and talk about other stuff, too. All we have to remember, in the words of my brother from another mother, K to the Shopso himself, "They're gonna put that in their mouth."

Kenny, if you read this, XO.