Mustgo

Monday, 8:47 pm

By Kate

May

23

2005

Many years ago, a friend invited me over for dinner with the warning, “It’s Mustgo night.” Well, it sounded exotic to me. Was it fish? I asked. Well no, not quite. In every day language we’d call it left overs night. But this mother had a hard time selling left overs until she named it MustGo and turned it into an event. One never knew what Mustgo would yield, but we could always guarantee that there wasn’t another meal like it on the planet. It was a culinary adventure.

Periodically, I’ve adopted Mustgo night, too. Tonight, for instance. It’s a good way to clean out the fridge of bits and pieces of stuff that would otherwise become science projects.

So this is what I threw in the pot tonight. I decided that most of what I had was stew material. I started out with two chicken legs with thighs. Browned them on both sides and added a can of cream of celery soup. Tossed in a handful of baby carrots from the produce drawer, along with a few mushrooms, a few cauliflower florets, a half cup or so of green beans and a half a bell pepper.

Then I saw the half an onion in the zip lock bag. Oh, and there were three lonely small potatoes left in their bag. And a wedge of lemon. And an itty bitty clove of garlic. Oh wait, there was also a little hunk of turnip, too. I was skeptical about the turnip, but it ended up in the pot, too. Added a little cracked pepper and it all looked good to go.

I let it all gently simmer for about an hour and the smell that filled the house was nothing less than mouthwatering. The lad had drool coming out the corners of his mouth. “What is it?” he asked. “When’s it gonna be done?”

I’ll never be able to reproduce it, unfortunately. And I probably broke a zillion rules of cooking. But it was good. Very good. That’s Mustgo for you. Never know what you’ll get, but it can turn up some surprising combinations that work well together. I really think it was that small hunk of turnip.