living on leftovers

.
With no compelling interest on the front burner, I turned away from a Zen Buddhist bulletin board this morning in order to get a bead on lasagna.

There is some spaghetti sauce I made a while back in the fridge and I really don't want to waste it, so I thought lasagna might be a good disguise. It was the balance of cheeses that I wanted to scope out: Ricotta, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Provolone ... how to make a meal of leftovers taste good.

Leftovers. I'd love to cook in a way that was right on the gnat's ass for amount -- something that would leave nothing to put back in the refrigerator. But because my children have varying schedules that are hard to keep up with, I usually cook in such a way that there are leftovers. What is enough turns out to be too much.

Leftovers are what most of us dine on, I imagine ... the lingering bits and pieces of thoughts and actions of the past concocted into some new dish, which in turn has its own leftovers. How nice it would be to live a life free from leftovers, the stuff from the past that fills the mind-fridge and threatens to overwhelm anything fresh and new and original.

Maybe a happy and peaceful life does not require the frills and furbelows of spiritual accumulation and training. Instead, perhaps it's just a life lived without leftovers.

Still, there's no reason why the lasagna shouldn't taste good.
.