Leftovers angst: There's more than enough to go around
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, December 25, 2003
I'd just left the party when my cellphone rang. I could see on the caller ID that it was my hostess, and I was pretty sure I knew what she wanted to talk about.
The leftovers.
``Was I too pushy?'' she asked.
I thought about how she'd practically forced a guest to take home the half-eaten yule log, and how she'd pressed smoked gouda on me - and, of course, the unpleasantness over the baklava.
``No,'' I lied.
``It's just that I couldn't have all that food in my home,'' she said. ``You understand.''
Of course I did. As someone who'd be safer living with a loaded gun in my apartment than a pumpkin pie, I was sympathetic. Still, strong-arming nearly every guest into leaving with a ticking caloric time bomb, under the guise of generosity, well, that didn't really seem to be in the holiday spirit, either.
``A jury of your peers would never convict,'' I said, trying to decide whether to toss the cheese or bring it to work to inflict on my colleagues.
I must confess, of all the party issues I've stressed over - foremost being the fear the hostess won't see the gift I brought - I'd never really thought about leftovers angst.
But after conducting interviews with hostesses and guests, I've learned there's a moment at the end of many parties when the food morphs from a gesture of culinary largesse into something that must be removed from the premises immediately, not unlike toxic waste.
``It's like clothing that's been drastically reduced and is crumpled in the discount bin at Filene's Basement,'' the pushy hostess said.
``I've had some weird moments,'' she added. She was thinking about a little tussle she'd had with a Thanksgiving guest who had brought two fruit plates and then, at the end of the meal, tried to take back the one that hadn't been opened. ``Only if you also take the pecan pie,'' she told the woman.
``It almost becomes a business transaction,'' she said.
``I have a leftovers story you would not believe,'' another woman told me. Her brother and sister-in-law showed up at Thanksgiving dinner, she said, carrying Tupperware and a cooler. ``That's breaching the unwritten rules,'' she said.
Another woman I talked to actually used the term ``leftovers issues.''
``I don't have any leftovers issues,'' she began, ``but one of my friends does. She always tries to make me take food because she doesn't want her in-laws to have it.
``She wants me to bring Tupperware. But truth be told, I don't want to be lugging food home to eat at 10 p.m. after I've just spent hours stuffing my face.''
Too bad, sister. That's your problem, not your hostess'. Her obligation to you ends at the door.
