When the cupboards are bare...

We are cleaning out the inn. We are turning out cupboards of linens and teacups, piling waffle makers and Tupperware onto the dining room table, sifting through toiletries and dusting neglected ledges. I have not been grocery shopping in a week or two, and then just for milk and apples. I won't shop again until it's to fill another refrigerator in another house in another state. So we are eating through what we have, and we may have to eat things that we wouldn't normally eat.
Primarily, lots of meat.
Frostbitten, slightly stringy striated muscle like the bodies in the Bodies posters, (preserved cadavers on parade!) in NYC, staring at me with half an eyeball and a raised arm.
Hello.
I'm digging through the freezer and out comes the fatty Portuguese sausage and icy pot roast, cocktail wienies and amorphous brownish gray lumps of hamburger. Bags of spinach and blueberries and homemade tomato sauce (leave it til January! It will taste so much better so far from summer!) prop up the meat, insulate it with cheery bright green and blue bags, promising freshness and healthy eating.
But we push the greenery and antioxidants aside: the pot roast calls and I lug it to the counter, chips of ice falling away when it hits the pressure cooker.
In the fridge, soggy carrots and turnips hang out in the crisper (not crisping), cabbage leaves wilted and gray, there's homemade wine with a slight root beer flavor from the two liter bottle it is stored in, the dregs of the ketchup cling to the upturned bottle.
Dirt crusted potatoes from my garden nestle together in a green plastic plant pot on my counter. Onions lose their peels and grow mushy hearts above the stove.
Pool is open kids, jump on in!
Peeled carrots and tearfully chopped onions, scrubbed potatoes and a healthy dose of juicy-juice wine. A sprig of rosemary from our neighbors, a few red pepper flakes, a splash of maple syrup(?- we're in Maine- syrup is obligatory?), a few more celery stalks.
Latching down the pressure cooker I wonder if it will actually explode this time. I put a rubber band around the handle just in case and am soon soothed by the rhythmic steam-induced rocking, the aroma of wine and vegetables and cow simmering and stewing into a soft savory mess.
An hour flies by and the hunk of frozeness is perfectly tender and I guiltily take a stab and shove the browned dripping mass into my mouth.
The carnivore inside yells hooray!

We had pot roast for lunch and for dinner. And the next day for lunch in the SOS formation, a soup of meat and disintegrated veggies with a fresh fried egg on top, marigold yellow yolk wobbling atop the mountain of beef.

We will continue to dig through the freezer, the fridge, the pantry. Interesting combinations arise and are satisfying in a Survivor type way.

Tonight I had hamburger laced chili my sister made and froze months ago. With sour cream and our last onion. I made pumpkin banana bread with flour from my 25lb bag of gluten free all purpose. What was I thinking. That, and the crackers! I never eat crackers! Why did I buy three cases? Just in case. And the meat...

Tomorrow night: a pork chop and applesauce? Canned tuna and rice noodles? Polenta and tofu?