After Thanks

After Thanksgiving I normally subsist on leftovers the next few days. This year I didn't have as much food leftover. I had ordered an 8 1/2 lb. smoked turkey from Marsh and only cooked the minor accompaniments: roasted yams and red cabbage, Basmati rice with cardamom pods, and whole-wheat bread.

Tonight, after an unusual workout at the gym (I haven't made it there for weeks now), I came home and started putting away what was left. I tore the turkey into portions to freeze and portions to eat at two more meals and started putting out new items from the freezer that I would cook for other meals. I have a lot of frozen stock. I took out cod fillets that I plan to bake with some herbs, lemon and olive oil.

For supper tonight, after a heavy lunch at 8 China Buffet (I missed the seafood extravaganza the restaurant puts out on Sundays and went for the first time since my visit with Kevin), I felt virtuous. I made myself a healthy platter of leftovers and ate while watching Pavarotti and The Rape of Europa, the PBS program on Hitler's pillage of European art objects during his invasion of surrounding countries. He devastated Poland. No wonder that when my neighbor, Linda, visited Warsaw four years ago all she saw were unsightly gray apartment complexes. The Polish invested their money in rebuilding their ruined monuments including the royal castle.