Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Jordan Chiles
Jordan Chiles is always in motion.
The decorated gymnast and two-time Olympian recently competed in the latest season of “Dancing With the Stars,” finishing in third place alongside her partner Ezra Sosa. She’s an ambassador for brands including Nike and Hero Cosmetics. In August, she launched a mentorship program called SHERO Athlete Collective for young athletes.
And in the midst of all of that, she’s finishing up her senior year at UCLA.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“I’m happy, but I’m also sad,” the 24-year-old says about her final year as a Bruin, adding, “It’s pretty cool to know that my dream school has become my legacy.”
Chiles is also in the thick of a legal battle to reclaim the bronze medal she won, then was stripped of, at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In January, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court granted her an appeal to reexamine the matter. “I’m going to stand for what is right,” she says. “I am doing the things to make sure no other athlete has to go through what I had to go through.”
With the Olympics arriving in Los Angeles in 2028, the question of whether Chiles will participate is top of mind for many fans. Her response?
“Right now, it’s just me and my college career,” she says, flashing a bright smile. “I think right now just being able to be a part of UCLA for my last season and then seeing from there on, from April until the next year, we’ll see what happens.”
Chiles trains every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays, but on her perfect Sunday, she’d skip the gym to hang out with her dogs, take a trip to the mall and binge-watch her favorite shows.
9 a.m.: Gospel music to start the day
I feel like waking up at 9 a.m. is the perfect time because it gives you enough time in the day to do whatever, but also you didn’t wake up too early. The first thing I’d probably do aside from washing my face and brushing my teeth, is put on gospel music or listen to anything that can put my mind at ease. If I don’t have practice, then that’s typically what I’m doing, cleaning my house and starting to rejuvenate my body differently. I’d take my dogs out. I have an Aussie doodle, a teacup poodle and a maltipoo. Their names are Versace, Chanel and Dolce Gabbana. Very bougie dogs.
9:30 a.m.: Breakfast with a side of “Chicago Fire”
I’d cook for myself. I like typical scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado toast and sometimes a bagel. To get in some fruit, I’d drink some apple juice to make it feel like, “OK, this was a great, healthy breakfast.” Then I’d most likely sit on my couch and start binge-watching something. This is where lazy Jordan comes in. Like I got up, I did this, I ate, so now it’s time to relax. I’ve recently been watching all of the Chicago [shows] like “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med.” I also recently started rewatching “Pretty Little Liars.”
12:30 p.m. Shop for athleisure and other goodies
This is typically when Jordan feels like she needs to go shopping. I’d put my dogs up and go to the mall. I deserve to go shop. I deserve to go splurge. I like going to the Topanga mall. I really, really like Jamba Juice and there’s one in the Topanga mall. I used to know the secret menu by heart before they started putting it on the actual menu. My go-to is the White Gummi smoothie.
I love streetwear, so if there’s sneaker stores around, I’d check that out. I sometimes end up in an Apple Store, don’t ask me how or why. It just always ends up like that. If I need to get athleisure wear, I always go to Nike. You can never have too many Nike Pros. If I need to get my eyebrows threaded or my nails done, I can do everything at the mall while I’m shopping.
4 p.m.: Time for homework
I’m heading back home so I can beat traffic and let my dogs out. I’d probably sit on my couch, scrolling on Pinterest, trying to figure out what I’m going to eat. Then I’d start doing my homework. Since I am still in college, I’d start whatever I need to do for that week. I try to stay as organized as best as I can because it is hard being a businesswoman and still being a college student. I’d probably do homework for about 2 ½ hours.
7 p.m.: Domino’s pizza and more binge-watching
I’d turn whatever show I’m watching back on, then I’d either cook or sometimes I’ll order in. It honestly depends on what Sunday it is. If it’s football Sunday, you know I have the wings and the typical Sunday vibes. But if it’s not, I might make tacos or Alfredo, or order off Uber Eats. I know this is probably crazy but I really, really, really, really love Domino’s. I am a pizza person. My Domino’s order is a small pepperoni, pineapple, olives and sausage slice … hand tossed, cheesed up, and then I will get a side of garlic knots and a side of buffalo wings with ranch.
If it’s not Domino’s, then I either will do Shake Shack or Wendy’s. I know it’s probably crazy and you’re like “Jordan, you’re an athlete,” but sometimes a girl just has to go in that direction. I like teriyaki food and hibachi places, so I’d either order from a place called Blazed N Glazed or Teriyaki Madness, or this place on campus called Hibachi Papi.
9 p.m. Video games before bed
I have an Xbox and a PlayStation, so sometimes I will go into my game room and just literally sit in my chair and play “Call of Duty” or “Halo.” Other than that, I have no night rituals. I will just make sure my dogs are fed. I always pray before I go to bed and my skincare is legit all Medicube, but I always make sure to do a face mask every other day before I go to bed.
10:30 p.m.: Prepare for an early practice
Since I probably have to wake up the next morning for an early practice, I feel like 10:30 p.m. is a good time to go to sleep. Unless I’m doing something with my friends and we don’t get back until like 11:30 p.m., but other than that, I’m in my bed or at least on my couch just relaxing.
Sunday Puzzle
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On-air challenge
Today’s theme is “hot.” Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts HO- and the second word starts with T-.
Ex. Rowdy bar with country music, in slang –> HONKY TONK
1. Guided walkthrough of a property
2. Any member of the N.H.L.
3. Lone Star State metropolis that’s the fourth-largest city in the U.S.
4. Like an animal with its four legs bound (hyph.)
5. Instruction manual (hyph.)
6. A little pompous and arrogant, informally (hyph.)
7. Punny greeting from a magician
8. Someone who steals animals from a stable
9. Congestion that drivers encounter around July 4th, say
10. Acquisition of a company against its will.
11. Exclamation for “wow!” on TV’s “Batman”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Evan Kalish, of Bayside, N.Y. Take the name of a nocturnal creature, in two words. The first word is a spooky sound. Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word and you’ll get another spooky, nocturnal sound. What is the creature and what are the sounds?
Answer: Screech owl –> howl
Winner
Dan Sadoff of St. Paul, Minnesota
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Rawson Sheinberg. of Plymouth, Mich. Think of a U.S. city with a two-word name. Add a letter to the first word, without rearranging letters, to name a country. Then, without adding a letter, rearrange the letters of the second word to name another country. What places are these?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, July 2 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.
If you’re struggling to use up leftovers like a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, turn the assignment into a creative exercise, says chef Margaret Li. It’ll make the cooking process more fun and less guilt-driven.
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On a recent weeknight, I opened up my fridge and found an assortment of half-eaten or ignored food.
That included takeout that I didn’t find appetizing enough to eat for lunch. A rotisserie chicken with most of the meat picked off. A couple of raw vegetables from the farmers market that were starting to wilt.
“There’s nothing to eat,” I told myself. Yet even I knew that was ridiculous. There was plenty of food in my fridge. I just didn’t feel inspired to cook with it.
So I asked some chefs for guidance. How could I more consistently use leftovers and the other ingredients I tend to overlook?
Start with a mindset shift, says Margaret Li, chef and co-author of the cookbook Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Think about cooking with leftovers as a creative, experimental exercise, not a guilt-driven one.
“It ends up being this fun game where you are creating something from what seems like nothing and solving this puzzle, and then you get to eat it,” she says.
There are other good reasons to use up your food scraps. Nationally, about a quarter of food products go to waste, according to the nonprofit ReFED. In my own household, where we spend about $200 a week on groceries, that means I might be throwing out the equivalent of $50 of food — an unnecessary burden on my wallet, not to mention the environment.
The chefs I spoke to had some practical tips about using up more of the food we buy. Here are a few that I put to the test.
Find your “hero recipes”
Build up an arsenal of go-to recipes that are flexible enough to use up just about any ingredient. Li calls them “hero recipes.”
I tried one of these from her cookbook, called “Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry.” (Scroll down for the recipe.) It includes loose ingredients like “1 pound crisp-crunchy vegetables” or “4 cups leafy greens.”
In the spirit of the recipe, I pulled vegetables out of my fridge at random and did not measure them out. The sauce was a simple mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and water. By the time I topped my bowl with chopped scallions, the dish looked like a gourmet meal, not an afterthought.
Other ideas: “You could put anything in a frittata, and it’ll be great,” says Tamar Adler, chef and author of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z.
Or, if you have day-old rice on hand, cook it alongside other ingredients to make fried rice. “Saute some aromatics — ginger, garlic, onion — in oil,” Adler says. Then add your rice and whatever leftover bits you have, like the rotisserie chicken and older produce I had in my fridge.
“Just take the approach of making it more flavorful and crispy and then spicy, and then usually adding a squeeze of lemon,” Adler says.
Label your leftovers
Keep a permanent marker and painter’s tape in your kitchen to label and date your leftovers, Li says. “That is a classic chef’s method for knowing what something is and when it was made. That saves you the guessing game.”
Adler takes the concept a step further and labels her leftovers with their intended use. Leftover blueberries are labeled “muffins-to-be on Tuesday,” she says. “I really like doing that — assigning the destiny of the food.”
So after a night of Ethiopian takeout, when we ended up with an entire container of leftover injera, I followed Adler’s advice and thought about what it might become in the future.
I imagined scrambling the spongy, tangy bread with eggs, akin to scrambling matzo into matzo brei. “Injera for eggs,” I wrote on the container. Sure enough, their destiny was fulfilled the following morning.
Li keeps a dedicated bag in her freezer just for scraps from which to make chicken or vegetable stock. That bag houses carrot peels, the ends of onions, extra garlic cloves and chicken bones.
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Don’t forget your odds and ends
Adler encouraged me to never, ever throw away the stems of herbs. Stems don’t get as much glory as tender, pretty leaves, but they still have the same herby taste.
“I’m going to chop these herbs up or stick them in a blender with a clove of garlic,” she says. Then add olive oil. “And then it’s just gonna be my base sauce for everything.”
So I foraged a few varieties of half-cut herbs from my refrigerator drawers, most of them sad looking and unidentifiable.
I threw out the stems that had turned brown and gooey and put the rest in a blender. I added garlic on Adler’s instructions, nuts and kale for bulk, and plenty of olive oil and salt. Then, on a whim, I added a splash of olive juice for brightness.
The result was somewhere between a pesto and a chimichurri, and it elevated that night’s otherwise routine dinner. And Adler was right: Once the stems were blended, it tasted exactly the same as the leaves. (The same idea applies for broccoli stems in a cheesy broccoli soup, Li says.)
Li likes to keep her odds and ends organized with an “Eat Me First” box in her fridge. That’s where she keeps half-used lemons, leftover coconut milk or produce that’s starting to get wrinkly. “You kind of have an idea for, OK, here’s where you look first,” she says.
Don’t strive for perfection
Cooking these meals did feel like a game, as Li had suggested. It brought me unexpected joy to use up as many existing ingredients as possible — to the point where I often spent much longer in the kitchen because I kept thinking of new ideas: If I turn these wrinkly sweet potatoes into a soup, then I can caramelize this half-cut onion for a topping, and then I can use the leftover soup as a sauce tomorrow …
Did I cook more often, though? Probably not. My cooking energy burned brighter but fizzled out after a few nights, at which point I ordered takeout.
So I was glad to hear Li’s take: If you’re too hard on yourself, you’re not going to enjoy it at all. “ I try not to be too obsessive about eating absolutely everything,” she says. If my takeout was truly terrible, I’m allowed to toss it or, better yet, compost it.
If you really want to use up everything, you can always chuck ingredients into the freezer. Li has dedicated freezer bags for different dishes, like vegetable scraps for soups or fruit discards for smoothies. (She labels them, of course.)
And how does that smoothie taste? It’s “delicious,” she says, “even if it’s made up of all the things that have been rejected in the past,” she says.
Recipe: Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry
Excerpted from Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Copyright ©2023 by Irene Li and Margaret Li. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon black vinegar, rice vinegar, lime juice, or other acid
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil, or enough to lightly coat the bottom of your wok or skillet
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced or minced, or more as desired
- ½-inch piece fresh ginger, minced or grated (optional)
- Pinch chili flakes or 1 small chile pepper, diced (optional)
- 4 cups leafy greens, torn into bite-size pieces, or 1 pound crisp-crunchy vegetables, cut into chunks
- Kosher salt
Stir the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and set by the stove.
Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat until just smoking, then add the neutral oil and tilt to coat the bottom of the pan.
Add the garlic, ginger (if using), and chili flakes (if using) and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add the greens and/or vegetables, in stages as necessary, and toss in the garlicky oil, then add the sauce and cook to your liking, stirring frequently.
Vegetable chunks may need 4 to 7 minutes — if you want to speed up the process, cover the pot so the vegetables steam for a minute or two, then uncover and toss again. Sturdy greens may need 3 to 5 minutes to get tender (we like to let them sit for a bit and char for extra texture).
Lighter leaves will need less than a minute to wilt down. Stir in a spoonful of any additional sauce you like, season with salt to taste, then sprinkle with your favorite garnishes and a generous drizzle of sesame oil.
A sprinkle of crunch is a great way to finish a stir-fry. Our favorites include crushed cashews or peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, thinly sliced scallions, and fried onions or shallots.
Your turn: What are your favorite go-to leftover recipes?
We’d love to hear from you! Share your recipe with us at lifekit@npr.org with your full name. We may publish it on NPR.org.
The story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and sign up for our newsletter. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit.
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