BEFORE THE VEGGIES GO BAD
By: Lauren Anderson
It’s a Saturday. It’s midnight. And I’m hungry.
I know what you’re thinking– It’s so late! Just drink a glass of water and go to bed! But I can’t, remember? I’m an actor. I just got done doing two shows, and I didn’t eat dinner in between. And my timeline is different from a bulk of America, so midnight is A. not that late. And B. a perfectly respectable time to have dinner considering when I woke up, and the amount of energy I just expended.
The Lauren pre-Solcana would’ve swung by a her local pizza joint and bought some slices on her way home. Or swung by her local 24 hour grocery store and picked up a frozen pizza. But not tonight. Not because I don’t still LOVE pizza, and would possibly run away with it, if pizza bought us train tickets out west… But no. No no no. That’s not my life anymore.
You see, I have veggies that NEED me.
I let out a big sigh. I drive silently listening to the radio, trying not to picture a pizza winking at me all seductive-like. I feel like a woman torn between a passionate and volatile old boyfriend and a steady and loving husband. I don’t want out of the veggie marriage, and I know pizza won’t be what I want in the long run, I just sometimes miss having melted cheese all over me, y’know? This is getting weird, but you know what I mean. At any rate, I go home.
I resign myself to making a midnight salad. Yippee.
In a strange turn of events, I had already pre-chopped my cucumber and green pepper. Jealous of my pre-prep? Well don’t be. It was out of necessity. The day before while moving things around the fridge, I noticed the end of the cucumber getting mushy. Same with the green pepper. So I cut them up and saved what was salvageable and tossed the rest.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this. It’s like a weekly thing. And I’m not looking for tips right now on how to extend the life of my veggies. I mean, I’m sure you got ’em. And I’m sure I’ll really appreciate hearing them at a later date. But right now I just really want to complain. I don’t want solutions yet. My misery just wants company.
I decide to cube some turkey next. This is all willy-nilly from how I usually make a salad. But like I said, on this particular night I’m distracted by thoughts of hunky pepperoni and mozzarella doing a Swayze-style dirty dance. Finally, I go back to the fridge and pull out a bag of butter lettuce.
I open the bag and empty it out, expecting to fill my bowl with a cascade of leafy buttery greens. “Maybe a salad won’t be so bad after all,” I think to myself. My mouth begins watering. “Maybe this is gonna be okay.”
BUT NO!!! Instead, out plops the soggy and disgusting carcass of what used to be my favorite kind of lettuce in a gruesome, offensive wad. I gasp in horror– adding insult to injury– the sharp inhale draws in the odor. Which of course, SMELLS LIKE THE GARBAGE BREATH OF SATAN’S MOUTH.
I check the package. The lettuce is exactly one day past the “use by” date. One day! WTF lettuce?! You really gave up on me that easy?! Where’s your tenacity?
I dump the bowl out into the garbage, and quickly tie it up. I can’t sit on this. I have to walk it out to the dumpster immediately. Yes. It’s THAT BAD.
I open my apartment door, and in an epic lesson in humanity and humility… it’s pouring rain.
Of course it is. Of course.
After tossing the lettuce into the dumpster, I return to my apartment drenched, frustrated, and still really hungry. I am out of options. It’s too late and too wet to get back in my car and go to the store. So I’m left mixing the cubes of turkey, cucumbers, and peppers into a tupperware, squirting it with balsamic, and eating it. Like I’ve somehow found myself in a dystopian future, wearing a grey tunic made by sentient robots. Dutifully eating my ration of food served in cold cubes, before Big Brother takes it away.
I think this goes without saying, but I’m not happy about it. This dinner of cold cubes just doesn’t cut it. I fall asleep unsatisfied. Dreaming of pizza. My hunger sated, but not abated.
And so it goes with vegetables. On and on and on. Trying to get them at the sweet spot. The perfect moment when all the planets align and you are simultaneously in the mood for veggies and they are perfectly ripe. On those rare occasions I would proudly raise my flag and declare myself a veggie lover. Yes! Please! I’ll even take seconds! But most of the time, that sweet spot comes around less often than the bridge to Brigadoon.
Now that I cook 90% of my meals, my fridge stays pretty stocked. I try to grocery shop once a week, (even though I still hate it) and eat down all the things in my apartment before I re-supply. I’ve gotten it down to a system. I know my staples. I’ll still experiment from time to time, but now I know what I want, and what I don’t. And like a good little eater, I make sure my grocery list has plenty of veggies and fruits on it.
And yet, the damn veggies still have me in a perpetual doe-see-doe. How to cook them, and when to cook them. Sneaking them into eggs after cutting out the sketchy parts, or dunking the rest in hummus and praying that my stomach is lined in iron and won’t turn on me like the veggies did.
Not to mention the money. Admit it. How many of you have thrown away a whole bag of green beans because you forgot they were in your crisper? Just me? I try not to think of that brown lump of green meanies as dollar signs, but that’s like, $3.50 down the drain. Multiply that weekly, and those dollars don’t make sense.
I’m on a pretty good pattern of cycling my food, trying not to over-buy. Even though I’m trying to purchase vegetables with the best intentions, life still gets in the way. Or I miss the peak time. Or I just don’t feel like engaging in the ceaseless chopping that accompanies a veggie-filled lifestyle. Forget to prep one time, or that you bought two of something instead of one– and boom. The beautiful bounty of nature’s finest turns quickly into the black and brown mortar of hell. Yeah that’s right. I’m looking at you, Avocado. You delicious fickle beast.
And don’t even get me started on being part of a CSA. If I’m this bad with vegetables I really like, imagine the spoiled carnage that would come if I was given 12 zucchinis, a rutabaga, and a pile of swiss chard against my will? I shudder to think. And hey, that’s no judgement either. I think CSA’s are a magnificent thing! Truly! More power to you if you can make one work. That’s some next-level veggie love right there. But all I see are fallen soldiers in the war of Lauren vs. Cooking. And I can’t have that on my conscious.
So what’s the solution? Well, I’m not sure. I think I’m finally done complaining though. Thank you for letting me vent. I may even be ready to hear some tips from you Veggie Pros on making the little buggers last. (But just a warning, I have no intention of canning anything in the near future. I mean would you trust me with a hot mason jar and some tongs? Yeah, me neither.)
With most things I’ve endeavored since starting this journey with Solcana, I like to broaden this experience out a bit. This veggie prep conundrum is reminding me a lot about the human condition.
Think about it. Most often, we humans set out on a new thing with the best intentions. Sometimes we get it right, and our reward is the ripe and delicious fruits (or in this case veggies) of our labor. We win. We triumph. We prevail.
And occasionally, we just don’t. We mess up. We forget, or let the thing go bad. We let it spoil, sit too long, and then it’s gone. The opportunity has passed. These mistakes can cost us our pride, our meal, or even our money. And that’s just how it goes sometimes.
We’re left with a weird taste in our mouth, and a smell that won’t seem to leave the apartment for days no matter how much Greek Seaside scented Febreze you spray.
But does that mean we give up and never eat a veggie again? HELL NO! We grab our proverbial and literal wallets and defiantly walk, head held high, into the grocery store or farmer’s market and give it another try! Because that’s what we do. We persevere. We learn. And eventually, we grow.
It reminds me of a great quote by the author, Samuel Beckett. It goes like this:
Ever tried. Ever Failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Man I love that quote. It’s even better if you say it out loud to yourself. Try it. (So lyrical!)
I will always love pizza, because duh– it’s pizza. But I used to eat it all the time, and only eat vegetables occasionally. Now I try to eat veggies more, and only eat pizza occasionally.
Because I really like eating more vegetables. I like what they’re doing for me and my body. I like that it’s becoming a habit to have them at every meal. I’m even starting to like the taste of most of them.
And I know deep down for every rotten veggie that I accidentally send to the grave, there’s a delicious tomato plucked straight from a friend’s backyard waiting for me. Ready to be sliced and savored.
And sometimes, when the universe is being extra serendipitous, you make a salad at midnight… and not only is it exactly what you want to eat, but it’s pretty damn near perfect.
