Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (May 01/01) - Some of us just let the tinfoil-covered bowls rot in the fridge. Others choose to eat leftovers for lunch the following day.

And then there are those people who can take a container of leftover caribou roast, mashed potatoes and corn niblets and whip it into a delicious shepherd's pie.

Bernadette Chislett of Rankin Inlet falls into the second category -- mostly because she's so busy running the Sugar Rush Cafe that she rarely has time to cook the first meal without worrying what to do with the remnants.

As well as owning the increasingly popular restaurant, Chislett operates an adjoining gift shop and the gift shop at the airport.

"I put in about 80 hours a week," says Chislett.

"Some days of the week I get out of here at 6 p.m. and make something for supper. And whatever is left over, I force my husband to eat it the next day at lunch," she says.

"He doesn't mind at all."

Another trick of the cooking trade is to turn leftovers into soup.

The joke translates into soups nicknamed Cream of Bottom Shelf and Once Around the Cooler.

These are the sorts of things chef Brien Foley knows about. Employed at the restaurant in the Siniktarvik Hotel for the last six months, Foley often breathes new life into an old dish for a lunch or dinner special. It cuts restaurant costs and prevents needless food wastage.

"Any time I cook off a bird or anything with a bone, I boil it and keep the drippings to make gravy or a sauce," says Foley.

"Eighty per cent of leftovers go into soup of some kind. Once the food is cooked, there's not a lot you can do with it."

An expert at feeding groups of up to 600, Foley says large numbers always make for ample leftovers.

"With a group that size, it's easy to overshoot a whole roast. It becomes a hot beef lunch special the next day."

But when it's food that got left behind at a buffet table, Foley says the human element made it necessary to throw out spare vittles.

"If the public has access to food, you can't use it," he adds.

And, as if often the case, when Foley manages to find time to get away from the kitchen, he's not prepared to stand at the stove at home.

He eats mostly microwavable dinners -- unless he's trying to impress someone.

"Those leftovers usually end up sitting in the fridge until I end up with a science experiment," he says.