Create What You Crave

Am I the only one who still cares about mixtapes?

Some of my favorite music of all time spans the circuit of years when hip-hop introduced itself more permanently to the internet, pre-streaming and nicely situated next to the relevance of big box shopping malls. As our parents were discussing the housing crisis and celebrating the first Black President of the United States, my friends and I were downloading all the “unreleased” (in that they did not find their way onto albums) songs we could find on the corners of the internet onto blank CD’s stacked like currency on something that resembled paper towel holders. Those who were fortunate graduated to the iPod. And those who dared to be different pulled out their Zune.

Old Kanye sat comfortably on the Billboard charts. 50 Cent was still a rapper. Jay Z had not begun educating the community on the value of investing in art. Lil Wayne had a feature everywhere you turned (some things haven’t changed). Drake (read: DRAKE??!?!?!?) was still synonymous with Degrassi. And on the topic of Soulja Boy, he and Chris Brown controlled the viral dances that I was never cool enough to pull off or confident enough to show anyone other than the mirror.

It was a different time for music and the release of headphones couldn’t have been better aligned with my entrance to high school. It’s funny now to see how easy and normal it is for teens to wear headphones at school, at home, at the grocery store, everywhere. I remember having to hide headphones in school. I remember iPods and headphones being taken by teachers. I remember sending an iPod off with a friend for the night and the subsequent feeling of waiting for it back like a car in the shop for new brake pads. I remember that hip-hop discovered it didn’t need a label to push its sound to the people. I remember, I was the people.

Blog era, mixtape era, whatever you want to call it, is extremely hip-hop. It didn’t play by the rules and yet it possessed all the same skills and tact and execution, perhaps more so than its counterpart: the album. Some of my favorite music of all time spans the circuit of years when hip-hop decided to release its art freely and show the labels that they were not truly tapped in. And maybe it wasn’t that premeditated, but the result was the existence of Mac Miller’s K.I.D.S., Drake’s So Far Gone, Wale’s More About Nothing, Lil Wayne’s Sorry 4 the Wait (though where does this list begin or end), Big Sean’s Finally Famous, and SO ON AND SO FORTH. These rappers all hit it big and have albums in their catalogs, no doubt. Many of those albums are very good and extremely polished, cohesive pieces of work. But in turn, we get fewer releases than what the mixtape era provided. And loosies that would have filled a mixtape (fun and free from the meddling of label execs) are kept locked away on hard drives. There will be no more searches for Drake’s “blackberry with the side scroll.”

I am not saying that these mixtapes are better than the albums of the artists mentioned or not. (There are some mixtapes you could make a strong case for topping albums and not be called crazy.) I am saying that these mixtapes made space for the freestyle. Not the lyrical exercise, but the creative freedom to be thyself. It was an era marked by experiment and unbridled creativity. Lil Wayne could become a rockstar for a month. Drake could rap over Kanye West beats. Mac Miller could break into a Black-dominated sport and make the starting rotation. Kid Cudi could be the man on the moon. The mixtape era was expressive, resourceful, and most importantly, fun.

Leftovers are the mixtape of the kitchen. Don’t believe the lies of their mundanity. These fragments of main dishes, originally polished and cohesive, are the playground for putting your food imagination to the test. Save those two spoonfuls of beef from tacos. Set those quick-made sauces into the fridge to dress a future meal. You don’t need to know how it will come in handy tomorrow to take the simple act of storing away today, whatever doesn’t make it to the bottom of someone’s belly. These pieces of dinner will soon provide the structure for new flavors and the fulfillment of unique cravings.

For a time, leftovers felt like a chore. Something that had to get eaten in the heart of limiting waste and eating-in one more day. Things to be tossed in a microwave and zapped until they’ve lost their buoyancy, no longer maintaining the same crunch or flavor. But if you free yourself from the limitations of recipes and cookbooks and the general dos and don’ts of the kitchen, you might be able to make your own sound. You have the prerequisite skills. You have proven your experience.

Move to the beat of your own drum by following the rhythmic tune of your heart. Stare into the fridge for entirely too long and remix those leftovers. Take the beat of a recipe you made last week or yesterday and add a new twist. Use the lessons you’ve learned passed down from elders or taught by cookbooks to bring your personal cravings to life. Cook with some sauce.

Faced with small portions of white rice, beef taco meat, too many corn tortillas then we need at once, and a paprika mayo approaching the end of its life I had to make lunch. Tomorrow I will stare down a new set of leftovers and search for a new tune. But for now I will create according to my cravings, unrestrained from certain notions about the way food should be. 

With those scattered ingredients I decided something between a crunch wrap and a quesadilla was what my heart was after. The crumbled beef entered the pan first, sizzling and rendering its leftover fat. Once heated, these were slid to the side making room for corn tortilla number one to take on heat. Then, and the part I was most excited about, crunchy tortilla chips were spread across the soft tortilla. Of course, a heaping of cheese followed and then the beef. What may have traditionally been a place for salsa is where the paprika mayo showed up, drizzled across the top of everything. The second corn tortilla completed the quesadilla and the rest was bliss. The result was as I hoped: fatty, savory, cheesy, crunchy, messy. In the end I chopped up some cilantro and added it alongside healthy drips of hot sauce. It was lunch, and it was my own.

It will not show up in a cookbook and will likely never take the role of a main dish. But it is a loosie, a mixtape cut that I will come back to more frequently and happily than that main dish which required reading and preparation and rules not to stray far from. Cooking your leftovers is an art, not a science. It is an opportunity to freestyle in the kitchen. The next time you stare down bits and pieces of previous meals, remember the freedom the blank canvas of an empty CD possessed. Make your own mixtape full of remixed leftovers. Cook over the beats of chefs you admire. Create what you crave. 

Thanks for reading Whenever You Eat or Drink. ✌🏾