Leftovers Taught Me More About Life Than Any Therapist Ever Could
How is it possible that leftovers can teach you about life? How are they even connected? It is really simple. Recently I was out to dinner with some friends that had come into town. We met at a local Italian restaurant. We actually ended up having some; LEFTOVERS. My mind started racing, what am I goin to do with three slices of Italian sausage and one fried mozzarella. As my mind started seeing the food matrix, it hit me. I added potatoes, poached eggs, scallions. I saw the fried mozzarella as the English muffin and then I pivoted because I didn’t want to treat the potatoes as a side, I wanted them to be the co-star. The poached egg—creamy, soft, fat and texture. It was perfect in my head. Scallion oil, my PTSE sauce and then the garlic chili crisp. It was packed with flavors and textures. Just what I wanted to wake up my taste buds and get my day off right!
I sat down, broke the egg and let that yolk pop, slowly releasing the yolk. It looked like lava slowly moving down the volcano. The yolk running slowly over the potatoes and part of the fried mozzarella. The first bite, I got hit with, crunch, heat, fat, creaminess and flavor bombs. Salty and smokey from the sausage, caramelized onions and garlic layered a savory umami punch. It all just hit! Totally what I wanted and NEEDED. As I sat, this thought popped into my view. Why do we call them leftovers? To me, it carries a negative stigma, like mental health itself. We call them leftovers because they have been cooked once and we just couldn’t finish the dish so we WANT and NEED to experience the magic of this dish again. It’s this primal desire to have that dopamine rush again. When we heat the food up, it just never hits the same way. If you are nodding your head, FUCK YES, HE GETS ME! Welcome to food addiction. That is what I searched for every time I would eat. I have a new view on food. It is not a leftover. It is something to be reimagined. As Disney called his artists, Imagineers. They invented, reinvented, reimagined stories. Why can’t we look at leftovers the same way. That got me to think about how many times I have reinvented myself. I started to see this parallel between leftovers and reinvention. It is like life itself. I know, it sounds hippieish I get that, but stay with me.
Life, the red thread that is interwoven between all of us is bones and water. We chefs call it the base of our stock. You add mirepoix, aromatics, carrots, celery, onions, bay leaf, garlic, shallots, ginger. You bring it to a boil and the bubbles pull out the flavor, nutrients and impurities. White foam rises and you skim it off. If you don’t, it sours the stock. As it simmers, the water reduces and the flavors come together but the taste is still flat. You add salt. Suddenly it wakes up. The flavors deepen. You catch whispers of garlic and shallots, sweet touches of carrot, spice from the ginger. Then you strain the stock, remove the bones and vegetables, and what you are left with is the broth. Now you can build the soup. You add spices, aromatics, sauté them, deglaze with the stock, fortify it, layer it, tweak it, until you reach your vision of perfection. You let it rest one last time and then serve.
Life is never the same twice. We are constantly adjusting and seasoning ourselves, chasing a version of perfection that keeps shifting. I never thought in my life that leftovers would teach me this. Reinvention is not bad. It is survival. Leftovers prove it. They remind me that if I stay present I can take scraps and turn them into something craveable. Same with life. You either toss it in the trash or you imagine it into something new.
