I'LL HAVE THAT FOR LUNCH

The other morning I was packing lunch for my son.  He likes cold cuts on a roll with lettuce.  When I finished making the sandwich, I had this left over.

That's a half a leaf of romaine.  I wrapped it up for later.

Yes, I have become someone who wraps up half a leaf of lettuce and eats it later.  This is partly economics ... why should I throw out perfectly good food? ... and partly labor saving.  If I had to wash a whole new leaf of lettuce for my sandwich, I might just skip it and eat my sandwich without any lettuce at all, thereby depriving my body of important Vitamin Whatevertheheck.

But since I have a clean and crisp leaf waiting for me in the fridge, healthy sandwich making is a snap!

One night after dinner I wrapped up these.

Those are two slices of a baguette.  Miraculously, they survived dinner with two hungry boys and a husband who never eats lunch.  They stayed nice and fresh in the plastic bag until I enjoyed them the next day with some cheese and a pear.

I remember my mom wrapping up, like, the last three tablespoons of ham casserole after dinner for her lunch the next day.  I remember thinking how that seemed sort of sad ... was that really her lunch?  Did we need to be that careful about saving food? Now, I think, boy it sure would taste good to have a few bites of ham casserole right now.

I also eat: the brown bananas no one else wants, the heel of the bread, the dregs of the cereal in the box that kids call "dust." Today it was Honey Smacks.  Not my favorite, but pretty good with raisins.

I love food, and I'm not picky, and mostly, I'm in a huge hurry all the time.  So having portion ready snacks is a must.

I'm not the only one saving food around here.  When my husband makes a lemon twist for our cocktails, he saves the rest of the lemon and puts it back in the fridge like this.

Lemonade, anyone?