Eating the Barnyard

One thing I know is that the twins were always a team. When they were young and thus too short to reach the freezer, Matthew would get on Marc's shoulders so they could reach the popsicles and ice cream. When their mother and sister came home from the grocery store, they'd collectively pour the sugar into the sugar bowl. Not that it was a two-person job or anything, but, you know, teamwork is important, especially when you are born with a built-in teammate. (Matthew likes to be in charge of filling our sugar jar and has deemed it his "favorite household activity.")

One of the trickiest things for these brothers, though, was the race for, well, food. In a household of seven people, you had to arrive in the kitchen as soon as the food was ready or you were guaranteed to get nothing at all. From what I've heard about these experiences, meals were more like a manic and dramatic sprint than a peaceful family gathering. His stories about rushing to the chili pot only to find dregs are funny, but it's so utterly heartbreaking to me that food was so helter-skelter in his house when he was growing up. I suppose it's possible that there's a little bit of exaggeration involved in his stories, but there's also so much truth, and that means a few things were always missing: dinner at a table with conversation, second helpings, and, most importantly, leftovers.

A world without leftovers: good or bad? It's likely that you'll have a very instantaneous reaction to this question. I grew up with this thing that may sound familiar, called leftover night, which I dreaded. I loved all the meals the first time around, and yet something about eating them a second time was upsetting. I think it stemmed from the idea that I was always so excited to see what sort of magnificent culinary creation my mother would think of next, so when there wasn't something new, I was disappointed. I always liked the leftovers better once I was actually eating them, but I couldn't quite get over it, this idea of leftovers.

Once I started functioning in the normal (by this, I mean, adult) lifestyle, I learned to like leftovers for their practicality and function. Having a job, I learned, meant taking a lunch every single day, and when I heard the sweet angelic voices of the leftovers crooning to me from the refrigerator in the morning, I would practically die of happiness. Plus, I learned that many things actually taste better the next day, like chili and lasagna and pudding.

And there's something so much more satisfying about having hot food for lunch than cold food. I used to work at a community center and after-school program that was specifically designed to support the children of African immigrants. I was crazy about the kids, but my supervisor's abrasive, demanding manner left a lot to be desired, and I ended up in tears at least once a day. My mornings would be spent writing up grant proposals and lesson plans, while she loudly moved furniture around, loudly gossiped with the many visitors she had, or loudly interrupted me to hand off piles of insurmountable paperwork.

The most influential she ever managed to be was when she taught me about the power of hot lunch. She would say in her thick-like-honey Nigerian accent, You cannot have strength from cold things. Cold foods for lunch will put your soul in a bad order. Hot food makes you complete. It's funny to me that her personality was so rough and icy but she understood the importance of things not being cold. I always think of her when I eat my work lunches, especially if I am eating something cold, wishing I had something hot that would fill my belly in a way that cold things cannot.

At dinner time, I tend to cook way more than I need to. Having leftovers practically guarantees that I will eat lunch the next day, while a leftover-less meal might mean that I end up going out to lunch (resulting in guilt), not eating lunch at all (resulting in guilt), or eating some pitiful semblance of a lunch, pieced together with nuts, a banana, some cheese, some crackers, maybe some yogurt. While I like all these things, it just doesn't feel as complete, as satisfying, as a meal that is hot and less snack-like.

Besides this selfish lunch-for-me reason, I have a much more important reason to cook inordinately large amounts of food for dinner, a reason that is much more satisfying than my own hot lunch pleasure. Matthew, you see, never had a leftover until, well, me. He spent his whole life dreaming of leftovers, transfixed by the thought of leftovers, praying for just one little leftover. When we started spending more time together, I was startled by his excitement over leftovers. I'd make dinner at his house, and the leftovers wouldn't even last six hours. When we moved in together, leftovers were the sweet bounty he had always wanted. He would actually ask for leftovers for dinner! He would eat leftovers three hours after the dinner itself! He would eat the leftovers for breakfast the next morning! He would take a bath in the leftovers! Okay, so there was no bath, per se, but I learned quickly that he was very, very good at consuming leftovers. He was the perfect match for my reckless and excessive cooking style. There were times that I'd make something that wasn't so great, and I'd sort of dread taking it to lunch the next day, but then imagine my ecstasy when the leftovers were gone when I went back to the fridge the next day! Now that's service. That is leftover love.

I've learned that I should actually cook for twelve people, rather than just two. He loves to tease me endlessly about it, but we both know how happy he is to see the tupperware in the fridge, packed with last night's memories. Between the two of us, we can really plow through some leftovers, and he's taught me about the importance of them. In fact, when there aren't any leftovers in the fridge, I sort of panic, and I wonder, what on earth are we possibly supposed to eat? When I ask him what he wants for dinner, his response is always one of two things: Whatever you're making or Do we have any leftovers? He has never once requested a certain dinner item, because he is so endlessly happy with anything that tumbles out of the kitchen and onto his plate. I used to get a little frustrated when he had no dinner ideas to submit, but it didn't take me very long to realize that I'm immensely lucky. I can churn out anything from the kitchen, put it on a plate, and it will make him very happy. And if that dinner has seen the insides of a tupperware container, then he will be especially elated.

Thursday was Matthew's birthday, which meant that it was also Marc's birthday, and last night we had a birthday dinner. When I asked what they wanted to request for their special meal, the reply was "anything you want to cook," which was both humbling and nervewracking at the same time. After four seconds of deliberation, though, the concept was in place. The theme would be this: eating the barnyard. If there is anything these two men love more than leftovers, it's meat, and if there's anything better than that, it's leftover meat. That, then, was the plan. I set to work, gathering animals (specifically, barn-flavored ones), and we ended up with the strangest assortment of leftover-worthy dinner foods you could ever imagine. The array would have confused company, but to Matthew and Marc, it made perfect sense.

I'll tell you what we ate! The starter was miniature pepperoni and feta pizzas, followed by the actual meal, which was a quadruple meat offering of barbecued beef brisket, lamb/pork/beef meatballs in tomato sauce, jalapeno cheddar bratwursts, and chicken salad with roasted red pepper mayonnaise. We ate all these things on parker house rolls and by themselves, not really needing (or having space for) the salad or starch-fest of potato pie and polenta. The birthday cake was not actually a cake because it was a peach/raspberry cobbler (their collective choice -- very outside-the-box!), and the birthday cocktail was vodka shaken with the Meyer lemon-rosemary simple syrup and mint. There were so many things that it was, quite frankly, ridiculous, and we hardly made a dent in any of it. That, though, was quite the point. To-go boxes were sent home with Marc, and, here at home, we used up almost all of the tupperware collection (and refrigerator space).

When we got up this morning, there was coffee to drink, a few memories to cite from the evening before, and a bit of muddy, slow conversation which resulted from being over-served the night before (by, um, ourselves -- how becoming). The moment his coffee mug was empty, I heard something that was music to sleepy little ears. My Saturday cooking freedom was being declared! I heard Do we get to eat leftovers for breakfast?! I replied, Of course, followed by, and let's see who can eat the most unlikely leftover for breakfast. Grinning ear to ear in only the way that pure, unabashed happiness can manifest itself, he answered, You're on.