Monkey See, Monkey Do

When I was a little kid trying to imitate my big sister and older brother, they would mock me with "Monkey see, monkey do!" It made me cry. Lots of things the older kids did made me cry. I'd like to say that my tears made them sorry, but they didn't unless Mom intervened and even then they weren't truly sorry, just sorry they got caught. Such is the tough life of the youngest kid. Heavy sigh.

So, here I am, about 55 years later, still imitating my "big sister," in this case Cookiecrumb, who has been blogging longer than I.

She made fried rice a few days ago (March 22nd) and, as is often the case, I wanted to copy her. Oh, I made a few tweaks because I had different ingredients in the fridge but it's essentially the same. I put in some green garlic, celery, onions, carrot, chopped cabbage, scrambled egg and leftover corned beef from St. Patrick's Day. I fried the veggies by density so they'd all be done perfectly at the same time, starting with the carrots and corned beef, and working my way to the cabbage and lastly the leftover rice. Then I pushed it all to one side in the wide pan I used and poured the egg into the other half, swirling it around until it was just set before cutting it into pieces and mixing it in with the rest of the ingredients. The result was a fun confetti of flavors, but anyone who saw this would chant, "Monkey see, monkey do!" in that nasty sing-song voice the big kids always used.