The 'Whatever' Approach Is What I Do Best

By Erin Zimmer
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

In my kitchen, most leftovers have one real chance for an afterlife: as omelet contents.

Fajita scraps? Throw them into the skillet with a few eggs. Greek salad? Ditto, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Omelet-ifying foods is my default dinner move when I am alone and culinarily challenged.

I realized that was perfectly acceptable when my friend Virginia, a student-turned-professor in food studies at NYU, recently sealed a few smidges of lime-marinated shrimp into Tupperware. "For tomorrow night's fri-TAH-ta," she said, as if upgrading the egg dish to a more elegant state. It appeared she had made the shrimp -- part of an elaborate Baja-style feast -- with an eye to its sequel possibilities.

Omelets are quick, warm and satisfying; I'll always stand by that. But there are more options than eggs for cooking solo. Ever since I graduated from Georgetown last May -- ridding myself of homework excuses and mini-fridge limitations -- I've had more time to play with my food.

Sure, I'll print off a Nigella Lawson or Ina Garten favorite if there are other mouths to feed. But when I'm by myself, no way. Besides, I have questions that I've never seen answered in any definitive cooking-for-one tome:

* What about fresh herbs that go to waste?

* How could I reconfigure a full Indian spread with curries, chutneys and nan medleys for one serving?

* How much spaghetti and sauce constitutes a single dose?

My cooking is less about measurements and more about winging it, a skill I picked up early. Given her 9-to-6 career-woman schedule, my mom often wasn't sure what we would be eating until 10 minutes before suppertime. Despite my efforts to shove photos of braised veal shanks at her, and despite all my whining about so-and-so's mom's elaborate after-school snack, that kind of effort just wasn't her style.

Ground beef would go into spaghetti Bolognese, sloppy Joes or meaty tacos; she didn't really care which until the last second, as if she wanted the bubbling sauces and browning meats to figure themselves out.

"Seriously, Mom. What are we having?"

"We'll see, honey. Just have faith."

Most foods in our house suffered an identity crisis. After reading up on applesauce's baking benefits, Mom made brownies that were oil-less, always with a hint of Mott's. Because of my dad's feelings about creamy dressings, our "Caesar" salads were dressed balsamically instead of with the iconic Parmesan kind. He considered any mayonnaise or mayolike substance to be inedible; for a long time I just assumed Caesar meant a salad with croutons. Nothing ever tasted or looked bad -- it just wasn't normal.

My mom's favorite unconventional kitchen moment involved her first attempt at latkes. An Irish Catholic girl through and through, she boldly volunteered to produce the Jewish potato pancakes for her soon-to-be in-laws' Hanukkah dinner. She consolidated five recipe concepts from Los Angeles Times newspaper clippings saved during the time she and my father had dated.

Sprinkled with paprika and lemon juice, the end result combined the flavors and techniques she preferred. The spuds were grated by hand, not in a food processor. The resulting crisp disks, golden brown and flat, were perfectly misshapen: her style and, conveniently, per latke tradition. "Your grandpa said they were the best he's ever tasted," she has been reminding me ever since.

Following recipes to the letter was basically taboo, and I'm convinced that an inherited culinary spontaneity affected my liberal arts degree. Creative writing and esoteric theology courses defined my schedule. In the kitchen, without any pressure to stick to ingredients or steps, I deconstruct and reinvent dishes until they hardly resemble their prototypes.

Here are three of my favorite improvised meals, given the stash of items I usually have on hand:

* Cobb salads hit the spot, but in my opinion they have always needed a facelift. Or maybe I've just never had all the right ingredients. Ditching the pile-of-chopped-leafy-greens look, my recent version resembled a tortoise trapped inside an avocado shell. Shrimp replaced the usual chicken or turkey breast, and there wasn't a hard-cooked egg in sight. Hardly a Cobb, or even a salad at this point, should it still be considered one? Sure. It's mine.

* Chicken Marsala, an Italian-American dish with red wine sauce and mushrooms, probably doesn't garner buzz among my kind because, really, how many single cooks keep a bottle of Marsala on hand? Merlot can do the honors instead. My instant Marsala makeover, minus the Marsala, has an added portobello mushroom. Its saucer-size cap makes a nice single portion, replacing generic, pre-sliced mushrooms.

* Because sausage is a bigger deal to me than bacon, and cabbage is just plain delicious, marrying the two made perfect sense. I doctored the combo with a mustard vinaigrette and grilled peppers. The flavor approximates that of a hot bratwurst at a baseball game, but bun-less; what would I call that? Delicious.

Not all of my recipe impulses have been genius, to be sure. But at the end of the day, I always have my backup plan: omelet-ification.

Erin Zimmer is a new-media analyst and frequent food blogger for SeriousEats.com. Do you have Cooking for One questions? Send an e-mail to food@washpost.com.