On my podcast Your Last Meal, I ask my celebrity guests what they would choose to eat for their last meal. This is a fantasy scenario where they can have anything they want. Ninety-two lobsters and a bucket of caviar? Sure! The biryani your late grandmother cooked for you as a child? She will return to this mortal plane just for the occasion!
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So, imagine, in this infinite sea of imaginary abundance, choosing leftovers as your last meal! That’s exactly what my most recent guest, Chuck Klosterman, did. Chuck is a best-selling author, critic and journalist; his new non-fiction book is called Football.
Chuck wants Thanksgiving leftovers for his last meal, which I find both endearing and revelatory. He believes Friday’s leftovers are superior to Thursday’s fresh-from-the-oven holiday meal.
“Because when you have the actual Thanksgiving meal, there’s presentation to it,” Chuck tells me in the episode. “The plate is almost aesthetically designed. You’re usually having some sort of appetizer, you’ve been drinking wine and beer all day. But the meal on Friday, you have complete control. You grab the biggest bowl you have and you put [mashed] potatoes in and hollow out the middle of it. You put gravy and a little turkey at the bottom, then you put stuffing on top of that and corn. Then you put more turkey on top of that, you cover the entire thing in gravy and then you microwave it for 120 or 150 seconds. I think that is the best meal.”
Everyone who looks forward to constructing the ultimate Thanksgiving sandwich on Friday morning is enthusiastically nodding along!
I also interview a Wall Street Journal food reporter who presents data on Americans’ relationship to the food-filled plastic containers languishing in our refrigerators. She says leftover consumption, for folks of all socioeconomic statuses, is at an all-time high!
All this talk of leftovers reminded me of a conversation I had with Seattle Times food writer Tan Vinh, on a past episode of Your Last Meal. Tan eats at restaurants for a living, so he never cooks, which is illustrated by the fact that he stores sneakers in his oven. But he does transform his restaurant leftovers into new dishes, which I say is technically cooking! He calls it hacking his leftovers.
“Latest example! I’m working on a Chinese restaurant package, so I’ve been eating a lot of Chinese takeout,” Tan said. “I have mapo tofu in my fridge. I used that liquid, beef grease, oil and chili to [make rice] in the rice cooker. I have a very flavorful rice, it is delicious.”
“I ate 500 tacos over a couple months,” said Tan. “So needless to say, I have a lot of leftover tacos and salsa. I was hungry one morning and I used all the leftover tortillas to make chilaquiles. I used a green tomatillo sauce, but I didn’t have enough. But I had pho broth in my fridge. So I used that; I reduced it with corn starch, and it went perfectly as a sauce for chilaquiles. This is how I hack!”
My personal favorite leftovers hack: making a stuffing waffle the day after Thanksgiving.
The leftover hack I’d most like to try: Crisping up leftover pizza, cutting it into pieces and using them as croutons on a salad!
What’s your favorite way to eat leftovers? What dish makes the best leftovers? Send me a message, I’d love to hear from you!
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XO
Rachel Belle
