Monday, August 25, 2008

Larder-Bo

From the makers of Uno comes a game called Skip-Bo. It’s only related to Uno by the fact that both are played with colorful, numbered cards. But there the similarity ends. The goal in Skip-Bo is to draw down your stockpile to nothing by building up build piles, using a combination of your freshly-drawn hand, your recent discards and your stockpile itself. It is not a fast-paced game, and lends itself to knitting and chatting between turns.

It is hard not to see the similarities in what is happening on our kitchen. In a process similar to the familiar emptying the fridge to prepare for a few weeks’ absence, we have taken things to a new level. The objective of this game is to draw down the larder to nothing, building up meals using fresh veggies from the garden and the CSA, leftover odds and ends in the back of the fridge, and the dwindling contents of the larder itself. We are in the early stages, and things like tomatoes and blueberries manage to make even the most mundane noodles or baking mix seem like a summery treat. I imagine that as the season winds down, we shall increasingly turn to soups, with the ultimate concoction likely to draw sneers all around; vilified but for the thought of the airplane food to come.

For now, the last of the tomatoes join some leftover garlic oil in a quick sauté over a half-packet of elbow noodles, not bad for the start of a new game.