Garbage Tray

My brother, Lem, was coming over and he eats like a horse. I had a few snack things but as I looked at the table I thought I should probably have more food. But what? Even though Kevin and I are doing fine in today's horrible economics, you get into that mode where you know times are tough everywhere and you need to save. So let me introduce you to: the garbage tray! Now there isn't really garbage on here, I call it the garbage tray because I pull everything I can out of my fridge and figure out a way to use it.

Out came all the cheese and lunch meat I had and I sliced it up nicely and arranged it. I took the year-old olives out and put them in a bowl. I even found about two slices of olive loaf that I cut up in little pieces. I had bought a coffee cake the day before and sliced little, tiny slices of that. I garnished it with some cilantro that was starting to go bad, I just used the best pieces. And viola! I kept telling Kevin he couldn't touch it, after all most of the stuff had already been sitting in the fridge for weeks but it's all about the presentation. He just didn't know he wanted to eat it until he saw how pretty it looked! So if you are going to make a tray like this, just start digging in your fridge and pull out anything you can. If it can be eaten with your fingers, slice it up and arrange it, even if there is only a little bit.

I pulled some grapefruits out of the fridge and thought I should use them, too. To make this drink, I cut a grapefruit in half and squeezed the juice out of both halves. Then I mixed it in a cocktail shaker with amaretto and a little bit of diet 7-up. My brother's wife, Marie, loved it.

Lem and Marie left that week for Oklahoma. I probably won't see him for over a year. He just graduated college and now the Air Force owns him for many years. I hope all his big dreams come true!