Menus and grocery list, September 10, 2013

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Charles Caleb Colton

 Depending on your point of view, (and how likely you are to be stalked by celebrity impersonators) imitation may 

serve a useful and unifying purpose,

  be a creative use of available resources,

or tip straight over into rhinestone-crusted creepy.

Whether it's flattery or not, imitation is inevitable. Even the most creative originals among us copy:  poets write poems they've spun from other poems, musicians compose new works that are variations of other works; even a one of a kind artist like Van Gogh riffed on themes laid down by other painters. When he checked in for a stay in the local asylum, he knew he'd be short on source material, so Van Gogh spent his solitude reimagining about 30 paintings that had already been imagined: 

Paintings by Millet on the left, and their variations on the right.
Good thing Vincent lived before the dawn of copyright litigation-
the lawsuits would've driven him crazy.
Oh. wait....

 Try to resist any form of imitation. Go ahead, try. You'll find that 

the desire to be unique is perfectly and unnervingly
 balanced by the desire to blend in with the herd,

or you'll find, to your dismay, that even when  you think you've hatched a truly original idea,

someone's laid that egg before you.

So, without pretension or apology, I offer you this week's menus- all of which are variations of things that have worked well in the recent past, or spins on old standards:

Wednesday: Honey Brined Chicken and Baked Potatoes

The honey brined chicken is an old standby, and baked potatoes are perhaps the least original and most carbwonderful things ever thrown in an oven, aren't they. We'll be pounding the chicken breasts to an even thickness, and panfrying them in a mix of olive oil and butter. A few extra pieces of chicken will be sliced up into a fettucini alfredo later this week.

Thursday:Pulled pork and green bean salad

If a crock pot recipe requires turning and stirring and tending every hour or so, then it's really a stove-pot recipe, isn't it? That's the lesson learned from last week's recipe. My friend (and one of the best and most adventurous cooks I know) Alison recommends this variation instead. We'll probably be serving the pork up on buns with a bottled barbecue sauce.

Friday: Fettuccine Alfredo and Caesar salad

This Alfredo sauce recipe looks a little intimidating, but I promise it's not. If you've only ever had Alfredo sauce from a jar, give it a try-it'll cook up in about the time it takes the pasta to cook, and it's not much more expensive. Mayonnaise, which is a combination of eggs and oil, will stand in for eggs in the salad dressing, and we'll serve slices of Wednesday's leftover chicken to top either the salad or the pasta.

Saturday: Roast beef and Poutine

Tonight combines two things that I'm especially excited about: a trip to Pete's butcher shop, one of the coolest neighborhood markets ever, and the Denver debut of poutine, our new comfort food classic. America's test kitchen oven fries will being soaking up this fantastic looking gravy, and I think we may actually be able to score some genuine cheese curds. If you don't have the time or energy to make fries and/or gravy, no worries, poutine is a delicious and forgiving recipe whose comfort food greatness would not be diminished by frozen fries, canned gravy and shredded cheddar.

Sunday: Beef fajitas 

Last night's leftover beef gets sliced thin and thrown into a smoking hot skillet with sliced peppers and onions. I'm wondering how a few roasted Hatch chilies would work in this mix. We'll dish up our favorite guac, and the easylicious pioneer woman salsa

I'm wondering too how many variations these plans will go through before they hit the plate. Necessity often dictates changes, and revisions to changes, and that's okay.

Because  dinnerplans aren't really about being original, 

or being an exact duplicates, are they?

They're about love.

And I hope that this week, you feel yourself loved,

and you find yourself loving,

with a kaleidoscopic mix of 

things both ordinary and rare:

courage, compassion, good humor and grace.  

And I hope you know,

that whether or not you're 

what the world calls original,

you are an uncommon
and beautiful rarity.