Right Under the Leftovers…

Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

My wife and I ate dinner out the other evening and we did not consume portions of our cold club sandwiches.

Our waiter asked is we wanted a container so we could take them home.

My wife said, “Sure!” which surprised me.

She’s not a leftover eater.

So, we brought the sandwiches home and I munched on a couple of them for supper the next night.

But my bride passed on having one, opting instead for some homemade potato soup.

She’s never been a fan of leftovers.

She will have a reheated bowl of chili or some stew but I’ll have a second go at just about any meal.

Leftovers are much less risky today since we abandoned the empty Cool-Whip containers to store food in.

They always seemed to get pushed into the dark, deep recesses of the refrigerator and one day you’d notice them lurking there and you’d try to remember what they contained.

Lifting that lid could be risky business.

The aroma of something foul could escape and ruin any hopes of a good meal.

On occasion, I’d check those containers for a pulse.

If there was one, the trash bag needs to expect some company.

Garbage disposals sometimes can help dispose of those “left-over-too-long” leftovers.

But that requires scraping out the sometimes unidentifiable food stuffs.

In extreme cases, the old food “scours” the inside of the container to a point that you don’t think it will ever be totally clean.

In those cases, it’s a complete toss-out of the food and the container.

We sometimes find items hairy with frost in the freezer.

At least in the frozen state, they’re odorless but you gotta remember to toss them in conjunction with the trash pick up.

Defrosted food stuffs in a garbage can heated by the sun can get really dicey.

Microwaves have made eating leftovers a much more easy and somewhat pleasant task.

As a kid growing up, I don’t remember much about leftovers in the 1950’s B.M. (Before Microwaves).

I’m guessing things got popped in the oven on a plate covered with aluminum foil but that took a lot more time to warm than a microwave.

While microwaves are great, I still like Jiffy-Pop popcorn better than one of Mr. Redenbacher’s paper sack treats.

Now Neav will often put a whole chicken in the crock pot and cook it.

We’ll have a meal with the meat right off the bone but then she’ll pick out all the bones and save the meat.

Normally ,that means chicken and noodles but it’s rare she’ll eat more than one serving.

My bride recently bought some new clear dishes with lids that seal nice and tight for leftovers so we can identify them easily.

But it still won’t change her mind when it comes to re-heating food.

She’ll still save things but if I don’t eat them, they wind up getting tossed after a few days in cold storage.

By the way, remember wrapping garbage in newspaper?

Hard to do that today with nothing but on-line issues.

While we’re on the topic, I’m not a breakfast leftover guy.’ fopr me when it comes to morning chow.

Perhaps “leftovers” need an aggressive marketing campaign to make them more palatable.

How about “Classic Chow?”

“A Slice of Yesterday?”

“Edible Rewinds?”

“Once Agains?”

Hop about the Julius Caesar repast?

“Eat Two, Brute!”

When we do cookouts, we always have leftover dogs, brats and burgers and I like to re-heat those morsels.

But those you can drop in a sealed plastic bag and grab ’em as you need ’em.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t chili or soup beans always taste better upon re-heating?

As long as I can easily determine if the stuff isn’t moldy, I’ll be chowing down on leftovers.

But my wife won’t.