This was going to be my Lance Armstrong entry, where I talked about DNF-ing in the NY Marathon, and quitting being forever, etc. I guess that might have sounded a little self-loathing. Even though I was not able to get my hands on any good blood transfusions, I finished the run on Sunday, so I guess if I’m going to be able to put anything new out there today, I have to try to do something with Billy’s suggestion, and talk about casseroles.
On Sunday afternoon, when I saw Billy for an unlikely second time in three weeks, I had just run a marathon, and then tried for about an hour in the freezing wind to find our hotel, which was only a few blocks from the finish line, while he, Brad and Ty watched a little dot track us on Stevie’s phone, laughing meanly as we walked several blocks in the wrong direction. Then I arrived at the hotel bar and quickly finished two tequila grapefruits, so I thought chances were pretty good I would forget he’d mentioned the casserole thing.  Well, all I wrote was

casseroles  blog

so I don’t remember if there was a context, and now I can’t ask Billy because he is back in Guatemala, dealing with what sounds like some very sordid business of the kind you probably already associate with Guatemala, I would have said unfairly. And, actually, in order not to perpetuate any stereotypes, I won’t say what it is, except it’s not gastroenterological in nature, and it doesn’t involve exploding helicopters either. I suspect, now that I think about it, that he was trying to goad me into revealing a little bit of snobbery, like the time he tried to suggest the burrito I was eating during the ALS Facebook challenge wasn’t from Taco Bell, or that I wasn’t even eating it, or, damn it Billy… I did the challenge, even after it stopped being cool.

I have two things to say about casseroles.

Thing one: When we were second years at UVA, I wanted to make something Sara Rydell would like. At the time, she didn’t enjoy lentils, for example, as much as Bridget, Jill and I did. We liked to share mini packs of M&M’s #covertbailey #insidejoke #deliberatemisuseofhashtags, but otherwise our taste in food didn’t overlap all that much. So I decided to make Sara Grandmother Shippy’s Heavenly Hamburger, because I knew she liked hamburgers! But she did not–as it turned out, at the time, as it turned out–like tomatoes, sour cream, onions, cream cheese, garlic powder, onion granules, egg noodles… Sara, please edit. She was really sweet about it. I bet we grabbed a fro-yo after.

The second casserole thing: I was introduced to a Sandra Lee semi-homemade chicken enchilada casserole at some point while I was pregnant. It had cream of mushroom soup in it, which I left in. I adapted it to include real cheese, corn tortillas, and some plants, like cilantro and scallions.  And pickled jalapeños. It still felt like cheating, but lots of people have eaten it and not complained. I haven’t made it lately because the Cooks Illustrated recipe for chicken enchiladas seems more defensible.

But it turns out I’m still very lazy in the kitchen. The other day, I came across a recipe for harissa, and I realized I have been buying prepared harissa. Which reminds me of the other thing Lance Armstrong says: “Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” That was him, [sic] right? I don’t know of any casseroles that call for harissa, but I bet they’d be flavorful.