1. Open the refrigerator and examine the contents. Confirm that there is really nothing there. No leftovers from last night, no fresh veggies, no eggs, no meat.
2. Open the pantry and examine the contents. Cereal doesn’t count. Pasta, yes. Rice. Cans of stuff? Tomatoes help. No tomatoes? Canned soup even though you hate it? No? Not even canned mushroom soup? Bouillon cubes. Vinegar and oil aplenty, even blueberry açai vinegar. Onions. Garlic, lots of that. And a whole bottle of 49-Pound Rooster merlot to go with whatever is going to spring forth from your fertile imagination.
3. Reopen the fridge and reconsider the definition of “nothing.” Is that half a bunch of limp celery in the vegetable drawer? One carrot. Some cheddar you could salvage if you sliced away the mold.
4. Check the freezer. Half a bag of peas. The last of the sweet cherries you picked last summer.
5. Go back to the pantry. There’s got to be something else there. Look. You will find it, the magic ingredient that will make these scrawny loaves and fishes multiply into a feast. No? Wait. What is that hiding behind the oatmeal—cornmeal! Cornmeal=polenta. Okay. We’re cooking now.
6. Make the polenta with bouillon so it tastes meaty. Add a little olive oil and all the old cheese at the end. Sauté the carrot, celery and peas with lots of onions and garlic and olive oil. Add a dash of the blueberry açai vinegar and some cayenne to make your mouth happy. Heap the veggies on the creamy-cheesy polenta. Drink all the wine with your sweetie. Munch on half-frozen sweet cherries for dessert.
7. Contemplate:
a. There is such a thing as a free lunch.
b. There is no such thing as nothing. Even the Creator used ingredients: chaos, clay.
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