New Year's Dumplings All Over Again

It was a champagne-soaked New Year's Eve experiment: Can we freeze the uncooked dumplings?

Three weeks later, I'm here to tell you: The answer is yes!

At the time, after spending many hours in the kitchen making the damn dumplings, to toss the leftovers in a bag and throw the bag in the freezer seemed like the quickest way to stop looking at them. But you know how it goes. A week later you're poking around the frozen food and there they are -- little rows of hard-earned dough pockets that you had completely forgotten about, and they look like they're suffocating. You're ready for them now.

So Margy came home from work today and she had them again, with brown rice and my strange little side dish: green beans and brussels sprouts with miso dressing. I can think of people to whom that would sound like something that simply is not food. But it worked out pretty well, I have to say. It was improvised, since I had just six string beans. Why the hell I would make all but six string beans on some other night is beyond me now, but I must have had my reasons. Like Miles Davis used to say, there's no such thing as a mistake.