Out of Egypt
I appreciate having run out of onions as it forces me to reckon more honestly with my remaining beef liver. If I weren't being so strict with money, I would simply purchase more (even in NY they're not that expensive) but I spent my last $3 on black pepper---a very worthwhile purchase, and a food that I'm surprised to have gone this long without.
Today's livers were borderline excellent despite being barely disguised. No marinade, no special sauce, and no onions. Just cumin seeds, garlic, lemon, and... cinnamon? It struck me as an unusual choice, too, but apparently that's a real thing, in Egypt, anyway, and it was an amazing appropriate antidote to the livers' metallic tang. These livers I could almost pop in my mouth without immediately rushing to cover my tongue in soy-soaked rice. Almost. I mostly included rice in every bite. But it wasn't as big a necessity.
"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations," Orson Welles said wisely, and I think I am finding that the same is true of cooking.
As an aside, I have discovered that cream-cheese filled dates are a wonderful thing. I ate seven for "lunch" today since I wasn't coming home in the afternoon. But I also got a surprise slice of free pizza at the talk I attended a minute or two after downing my dates. I could have had four or five free slices, and boy did I want to, but Lent and stuff, so one had to do. I had an unusually reduced breakfast of: a banana, so the pizza ex machina was very appreciated.