Through some miracle of Sweet Providence I’ve emerged from the bewildering commotion of Thanksgiving proceedings relatively unscathed. I suffered no emotional contusions, though I was attacked physically by a frozen prawn, a three-year-old child and a menopausal feline. Thankfully these did not come all at once.
The Supper was lovely. A standard-fare affair. The family wasn’t initially too keen on my pandy, a traditional Irish compromise between mashed potatoes and soup that always sends me into a rapture. Once I’d assured them that the spud goo was loaded with butter and cream cheese, they calmed down a bit. I demonstrated how mellifluously pandy melds with gravy (I term the vitreous alliance Gravy Pandy), whereupon they followed suit and gave out a few hesitant moans of approval. It’s good to try a new thing, even if it’s only a new potato texture.
Now, the inevitable byproduct of holiday excess is leftovers. They are practically a tradition unto themselves. For those of you unfamiliar with them, leftovers are the portion of the meal that is not eaten, but stored away in the refrigerator to ferment so as to produce an hilarious olfactory shock when re-opened by an unsuspecting victim. Leftovers often become the unintentional Whoopee Cushion of the refrigerator, an eventuality that I in no fashion endorse or condone. I say that when life gives you leftovers, make griddlecakes.
And so I did, just now.
Into a large mixing bowl went the sausage-bread stuffing, roughly torn shards of roasted turkey meat, my beloved pandy, florets of cauliflower simmered in sharp cheddar rarebit, a dollop of candied sweet potatoes and a wink each of pan and giblet gravies. A few eggs were introduced, then the whole of it was tousled gently so as not to defeat the contrast of textures. I spooned little mounds of the mixture into a hot, buttered skillet, waited and flipped. Once browned and unified as sovereign solids, they were embellished with the cranberry and tangerine relish they so deserved, and then surrounded by my mouth.
Try it yourself. This lil’ bit of lowbrow kitchen choreography will be rewarded with a pleasantly odd little dance of holiday flavors and textures, plus proof that leftovers are meant to be fried into unrecognizable spectres of themselves.