the cupboard of theseus
this half butt is my reward for working my way through all of the food that was stored in the cupboard and freezer at the beginning of the year. All of the dried beans, the frozen jars of homemade stock, the wild rice that was had carried to me from minnesota, the perfectly lovable can of tomato paste that for some reason never got chosen last year, they are all cooked and eaten and gone.
i still have some spices left: dried chilis, berbere, some jamaican curry powder, a crock of coarse salt that will be around for years. that quart jar in the corner is the last of my dry rub that i made at the old family house, maybe half a cup left. it will be enough to cover a big batch of chicken thighs when the time comes. there will always be pieces of the old home around but there are fewer of them all the time.
