Friday night dinner was meant to be leanest ground beef with chili seasonings and black beans with accoutrements to make a taco-ish type of salad. I’d already popped the chipotle-cheese potatoes and red bells into the oven, caramelized the onions in the cast iron pan, browned and seasoned the meat when I discovered there were no tinned black beans or pinto beans — or indeed any beans — in the pantry. Garbanzos, but no beans, so there was a substitution, but it was just fine.
Sometimes we like to have what I call a long meal. It’s a typical one-plate dinner eaten in a manner that promotes leisurely consumption rather than 10-minutes-and-down-the-hatch. Also, it is not merely taking a bite, putting your fork down, chewing 28 times, swallowing, picking up the fork, then repeat, a sequence recommended by many weight management counselors. Instead, the meal features some type of bread or tortillas or chips as a base, the various items are chosen to top each bite and is perfected to the diner’s taste. It’s a musing. (Ha!)
The Friday night offering was a perfect example of a long meal. Rather than sitting at the dining table for the sit-down dinner I usually serve here, we got out the TV tray tables to have dinner and watch the DVR’d Formula 1 practice session at the new track in Baku, Azerbaijan. Served on the plates: a bed of lettuce (not a plateful, but a bed), the chili beef with garbanzos, shredded sharp cheddar cheese, creamy homemade guac (with no tomato or salsa in it but lots of grated yellow onion, lime juice, sour cream and hot pepper sauce) and tortilla chips, accompanied by cherry grape tomatoes and a side of chipotle cheese spuds topped with roasted, caramelized red bell peppers. Leftovers for F1 qualifying Saturday.
Ms Chef in Seattle 
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