Leftovers

There’s a large story I like to tell about leftovers–I was looking for an adjective to place before story and after a few came into my mind I settled upon large. I’m not sure why, maybe there’s just a kind of largeness to this lifestory.

Sometime around 2007 or so, I was doing caricatures for a monthly clubhouse party for residents that lived in upscale condos, somewhere up near West Chester. The condo management would splurge on a lovely party where residents could mingle socially. I did this event several times, and not only was it a well-paid, directly-booked gig, but the ladies in charge always had a generous tip in an envelope for me at the end of the evening, on top of my normal large charges.

I don’t recall if there were musicians there, too, possibly…but it was just a very nice event for their guests and my drawings were well-received. On one of the nights, I was packing up my easel after the event ended, and the ladies in charge were trying to figure out what to do with a number of large pans of remaining, catered lasagna. There was quite a large amount of leftovers, along with a large amount of very good salad.

I was offered to take some home, and I said, “Sure, I will take a plate.” I assumed they would divide up all the leftovers up and they would each take some, or put it all in the frig for others. They were telling me I should take a whole pan of it home. These were over-sized pans, and some of the lasagnas, as I recall, had not even been cut into.

I thanked them, but said that just a plate of leftovers were enough for me. My reasoning was that I felt it would have looked unprofessional had I been paid so well, given a generous envelope tip (I believe they used to give me a $50 bill on top of my rate), and, then also go home with a whole large pan of lasagna. I didn’t want to appear greedy or too quick to take them up on the offer. I figured if I had said yes, then one of them might not have otherwise taken it home. And, they or the condo had surely paid a large amount of money for this good food.

I kind of recall they offered more than once, and kept talking among themselves about “what to do with all those leftovers” and I think I took a couple of more “plates” home and might have said “dinner for my boys” and “thank you.”

As I was wheeling my caricature bag out of the clubhouse and carrying my plates of leftovers, I glanced into the kitchen and was horrified to see these large pans of lasagna literally being scraped into the trash as part of the cleanup efforts. I just could not believe my eyes.

On my drive home, the image of this food going into the trash was all that I could think about. I thought about my efforts and difficulties as a single mom of teenagers in trying to pay bills and keep lots of good food around in plenty. I thought about how I could have divided up all those leftovers and frozen them, and had so very many meals for my sons and myself.

For many years I had practiced a method of stretching food that I had learned years before in the Tightwad Gazette: Keep a tupperware container in your refrigerator and at the end of each meal, put any and all leftovers–spoonfuls of veggies left uneaten by children, a few slices of onion, tablespoons of gravy, a cup of spaghetti, a single leftover burger or chicken leg–into the container.

Then, once or twice a week, make “Refrigerator Soup.” Just mix it all together, add some broth and/or some crushed tomatoes, and season it up with unifying, flavorful herbs, salt and pepper. The gazette advised to use hearty drippings, too (the fat that was leftover from baking a chicken, for example), to give your family a sense of satedness. And of course, bake some bread or muffins to go with it to help fill people up.

Around the time I witnessed the large pans of leftover lasagna being dumped into the trash, my older son also asked me one night at dinner, “Mom, can you cook more MEAT?” We were having our soup, and I told him that there WAS meat in the soup. (Little pieces of it floating around among all sort of other stuff.)

He said to me, “I mean, like a SLAB of meat.” In other words, my growing teenage boy’s carnivore appetite was not being quite filled. Around that time, I had delivered a bunch of framing down to my cousin’s husband, an artist who also ran fishing boat trips. He asked how things were going, and I jokingly told him that Zach was asking for “slabs of MEAT.”

He said, “I’ll send you home with some MEAT.” And then he looked in their big chest freezer down to the very bottom and started pulling out various leftover bluefish, duck, goose and pre-packaged items that had been in there for awhile, leftover from previous years, even. I remember trying to figure out how to cook the duck, and for a few weeks, we ate like kings I suppose.

About six months to a year after this lasagna dump, in late spring 2008 as I recall, I got a phone call from the manager of a small Christian bookstore that displayed some of my work. He told me that there was a huge framing shop–some type of a chain store–that had gone out of business and left all their merchandise behind. He said that sadly, the owner had fallen ill, and the store went bankrupt.

He told me that the owner of the shopping center needed it all gone within days, by the end of the month, so the storefront could be re-rented, and had given him a key and said his employees could take whatever they wanted. The more they took, the happier the shopping center owner would be, is what I understood. Because whatever was leftover, they had to pay to have cleared out and taken to the dump.

I told him that I would come up and see what he was talking about, because I couldn’t imagine it, nor had I recalled even seeing a frame shop in that center. I walked into a fairly large shop with row after row of displays of ready-made frames of many types and sizes. The others who were looking were taking a frame or two, and this man I knew kept urging me to PLEASE take WHATEVER I thought I might use.

At first, I felt hesitant. Again, I didn’t want to appear greedy as I looked around at what I saw. But he kept telling me that whatever was not taken would literally go into a dumpster and be hauled away.

This time, I believed it. Because. LASAGNA.

So I pulled my van around and started picking out and loading frames in. I filled as much as I could, taking the nicer frames that were the type I used on my calligraphy pieces I sold online and ignoring the cheap poster frames that still had regular picture glass in them. When I couldn’t fit anything else in, the man said, “Oh yeah, they have all kinds of matteboard pieces and framing tools and hardware in the back. Do you want to see?”

I was taken into the back and saw all kinds of spools of picture wire, special hardware, tapes, and many pieces of matting and foamboard for picture framing. Again, the man told me, the shopping center owner wants this stuff GONE. “If you can use it, please take it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. So, this time, I didn’t refuse being offered a large amount of valuable leftovers. I said I would go unload what I had and come back later, and bring my son to help.

We returned, and though some of the other folks were coming in and poking around, they didn’t seem to have much interest in anything but the little table-top miniature frames and such. And believe me, there were tons of those as well.

I decided that we would take anything usable in my business that we could fit, and we loaded the space as carefully as possible for maximum hauling. I decided that I could remove the glass from the cheap looking poster frames and use it in nicer frames or even cut it to custom sizes.

It took me a number of years to utilize, fully, all the frames (and glass/matteboard pieces) I was given. If a customer ordered a black or a cherry frame on my website, for example, and I had something similar in quality or especially, even nicer, that came to me for free, I would send a photo and ask if it was OK to substitute since I had those in stock. In this way, God provided for us and my profits were more maximized.

To this day, fifteen years later, I am still using up the last of the spools of metal picture framing wire (each spool had hundreds, maybe even a thousand feet), and I think I used up the last of the cheaper 8 x 10 wood frames within the past several years on “this and that.”

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If you’ve read this far, thanks for listening to a few of my stories about leftovers. I surely could think of many others, since I seem to gravitate toward resourcefulness and have many-a-time been given something heading for the trash or otherwise leftover (or purchased at Thrift Stores) that has served some purpose.

But my initial thoughts about leftovers today were really prompted about another kind of “leftovers”—and these are the painful kind.

At the holidays, I (and many) seem more sensitive to sometimes feeling/observing what seems to be forms of leftovers. I’m not talking about food, or gifts–I’m speaking of something else.

And I want to be careful how I speak of this feeling, yet, I know I am surely not alone in it.

Holidays are the time of year where we want to give our best to our families, and to those we love and care about. It is the time of year when generosity and gratitude is both celebrated and urged. Where we hope to be included in the firstfruits of the time, schedules and thoughts of others in the same way that others are in the firstfruits of our own thoughts, desires and longings.

Yet, for some, there are boxes of Christmas ornaments or photos in closets leftover from times long ago that will not be pulled out this year, for some reason. Mementos and memories of that which we gave and received in another place and time. For some, the very elderly perhaps, they are the only one leftover in some way…and they may not have much ability leftover to decorate, or to get out and celebrate. And sometimes if not often, I imagine the more able-bodied come later, bringing them some leftovers from some table at which they could not be present.

For others, leftover family issues and other dynamics leave some unsure of their holiday plans; they await to see if those they’ve given themselves to and hope to be with will have any time or thoughts leftover for them. But the most painful of the “leftovers situations” is recognizing when you yourself may be considered a “leftover.”

This holiday, I aim to be grateful for any and all leftovers, of all sorts. Because even the dogs get the leftovers from the table; and my cats, they patiently watch and wait for anything….anything at all…even some little lick of my bowl that I set down for them on the floor after I have enjoyed its best.

And my thoughts today made me wonder about the idea of leftovers in the bible. Were there any examples that might depict the feeling of human leftover-ness or the spiritual value or insights we might reflect on surrounding various “leftovers?”

I thought of at least four references that might fit into this category:

1. The dogs eating the crumbs at the table.

The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
²¹ Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
²³ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
²⁵ The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
²⁶ He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
²⁷ “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
²⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

~Matthew 15: 21-28

2. Touching the hem of Jesus’ garment.

Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman
¹⁸ While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” ¹⁹ Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
²⁰ Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. ²¹ She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
²² Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
²³ When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, ²⁴ he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. ²⁵ After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. ²⁶ News of this spread through all that region.

~Matthew 9: 18-26

3. The feeding of the four thousand.

Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
²⁹ Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. ³⁰ Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. ³¹ The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
³² Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”
³³ His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”
³⁴ “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”
³⁵ He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. ³⁶ Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. ³⁷ They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ³⁸ The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. ³⁹ After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

~Matthew 15:29-39

4. Dividing up the leftover garments of Jesus at the Cross.

When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

~Matthew 27:35

I hope that there is something in each of these biblical stories about types of leftovers that you will find larger than that which was in my three stories. And that I, too, will somehow do the same.