Rachel Belle: Welcome to The Leftovers. I'm Rachel Belle. The Leftovers is audio left on the cutting room floor from last week's Your Last Meal interview. And today you'll hear never before heard cuts from Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor. RB: You said, I love crying while chopping onions. Regina Spektor: When you're just chopping a lot of onions and the tears are just flowing, something about it feels very, very purifying. There's something really nice about crying when it's not coming from the inside out, but when it's coming from the outside in, it's like a different kind of crying. Yet it still does the action. RB: That is part of our conversation from last week, and I suggest going back and listening to that first. But if you're all caught up, let's get into The Leftovers with Regina Spektor. One of your songs is a go-to karaoke song for me for many years. I like to do "Hotel Song". I'm curious, as someone who sings for a living, do you ever do karaoke, like go out with your friends? Is that something that comes up? RS: It really doesn't. I feel like I did that a couple of times on the road. My first ever karaoke that I did was long before I actually played shows. It was when I was studying abroad for a semester in London, in Tottenham, and we went across the road and I did Elvis like the, "you ain't nothing but a hound dog". And it was really, really fun. But I feel like, I don't think I'm that great. I feel like people are like great at karaoke and that's their thing. I don't know if I'm like a great karaoke person. I like being as invisible as possible and being able to like, you know, when I'm in a place where people are doing karaoke, the fun is to listen to them and watch them. Like the least fun thing I could think of is that to join it and do it. If I could pick any superpower, it would be an invisibility cloak. Just be like, blend in and watch. RB: Be anonymous. RS: Yeah. RB: What is your perfect birthday cake or birthday dessert if you're not a cake person? RS: Well, I don't love, love, love sweet, but I feel like I can't really say no to a cheesecake because I, those are amazing. And I also really like like anything that sort of has like lemon zest or maybe lavender. I love key lime pie, like something with sour. But my favorite dessert dessert is definitely halva. RB: Oh! RS: Sweet. Somehow I don't know if it's the sesame that cuts it or like just my body's like, oh! high fat. Halva is really great. But yeah, I will choose anchovies over any dessert you present me like anchovies, olives, salmon caviar, like Ikura, like all that, you know, like it's like my happy, happy place with some miso soup. But if that doesn't exist and all there is is dessert, I will probably choose something dairy. RB: So Russian of you. RS: Oh yeah. Oh, yes it is. And speaking of Russian though, a Napoleon, real Napoleon cake with the cream and the thin... RB: The layers. RS: Mm, yeah. But not like the kind that they have in the bakeries that sort of pretend to be Napoleon. It's more like whipped cream. It has to be like that real kind of soury boiled, proper cream that's like in the Russian Napoleon's it's so good. RB: Oh, I'm going to look up a recipe, I've never had the real version. And also, if you're a Tahini person, I would love to send you I wrote a cookbook that came out November that's all sesame and it's a lot of tahini. RS: Oh, I love tahini. And there's a tahini cheesecake with honey and pistachios and I would love to mail it to you if Samantha will do that too if I can there's an address I can send it to you. RS: Yes, I would love that. Oh my God, I have like a huge tub of Tahini right now. RB: Oh, you do? Nice. RS: [laughs] RB: Okay, let's see one more question you choose what would you rather talk about the chop liver story, immigration and bananas, or the dentist pickles. RS: Okay, I'll tell you about the chop liver story. So, when I went to college, I became a vegetarian, rather I should say pescatarian because you can I can never give up fish. But I felt great and I didn't really miss eating meat or anything like that and I almost couldn't imagine eating meat ever ever again. And it felt really good because I feel like my soul is very happy to not eat animals. I mean, I honestly feel like my soul would be really happy to not eat any animals, fish included, but my body gets very, very unhappy when I don't eat animals. So it's just like one of those things where the body keeps winning. But, but someday my soul will not be in my body, which goes well with the last meal thing, and then I won't eat animals anymore. But I kept getting sick all the time, and especially when I started touring as a vegetarian, I was like, strep all the time antibiotics all the time just sick sick sick and getting weak weak weak. And so I went to the acupuncture doctor. And he was like, you need to stop eating dairy and you need to start eating meat. I was like, what, I couldn't even imagine it. And it had been like so many years. And he was like, well, you don't have to eat all meat, but I really want you to eat liver. Because that's going to be the only thing that gets you sort of like out of this state of antibiotic depletion. And I was like, this is crazy. So I walked over to Second Avenue Deli, and it was like, you know, one of those like walks of shame. And I bought myself... RB: And after not eating meat for so long to go straight to liver, I mean. RS: I know, I know. Which like, I think it wasn't so extreme because I had grown up like as a little girl in Moscow, it's like tongue was my favorite like meat to eat like at a party. So it's like I ate every kind of liver, every kind of like meat. So it wasn't like I was going from being full vegetarian all my life to now liver, but it was still like I could not imagine it anymore. And I went to Second Avenue Deli. I bought like the tiniest container that they had of chopped liver and I took it home and I like put it on a cracker. It was like the afternoon and I put it in my mouth and I almost got sick and I just threw away the cracker and I put the tub into my fridge and just close the door. And I was like, you know, this is not going to work at 3 a.m. That night, like a zombie from like a roof. I like lived out of bed and all I want is liver. Just the taste that my body got on the tongue in that one moment before I almost got sick was enough to my body was like, this is what I want. You're not giving it to me. So I go over to my fridge and I I literally take a tablespoon and I eat the tiny tub of chopped liver with a tablespoon at 3 a.m. And then I go back to sleep. And for the next like two weeks, I mean, they really got to know me well at Second Avenue Deli. I would just go and I would buy their biggest container of chopped liver and I would just eat at morning, lunch, and dinner. My body wanted it so much. I craved it like crazy. I'd only seen like pregnancy cravings on TV, like, you know, in films and comedy shows, but it it looked exactly like what those women were going through was all I wanted. And then it tapered off and I was fine. And then I just like was like, oh, this is what I needed. [laughs] RB: Wow. I love that story. Also online, there is a story that says you started eating meat again because of the Strokes when you were on tour with them. RS: My first actual taste of meat after being like vegetarian. Yeah, it was a showdown with my dad because the thing is they ate like steaks all the time on tour. And somehow the smell of the like meat kind of started to get me over like the smells good. The smells right. And so my dad was warming something up for himself. And I said it smelled good. And he said, well, then have some and I said, no, I can't. And, you know, and he said, I dare you. And I was like, fine. And it was like some kind of a showdown. I ended up having two slices of the steak, but then I didn't like for another while ever eat it. I didn't think of myself as a meat eater. It's more like a playful sparring with my dad. But and it didn't do the thing where all of a sudden I needed to eat it, not like the chopped liver, which was like, you will become chopped liver yourself. You will be 99% liver. But the bananas thing was that so the very first time that I ever tasted bananas was in Moscow, some kind of a shipment arrived. They were all just green. And we had to put them underneath a bed and keep them there for like a really long time till they turned yellow. And then I tasted them and I thought they were amazing. And then I, you know, I didn't get to eat them for years. When we got to America, bananas were everywhere and cheap. And so we bought them all the time and ate them all the time. I ate so many bananas that then I couldn't eat them for years. I mean, they're probably like a decade where I just could not even I would eat rather eat anything. And I think that just happens with like, whatever you overeat. You know, it's just like too much. Yeah, but now I'm back to eating bananas again sometimes. RB: Oh, good. A happy ending. RB: And that was Regina Spektor's Leftovers. RB: Well, I'm going to wrap up there. It was so nice chatting with you. I feel like I could talk to you forever and. RS: And thanks for your offer of sending me the cookbook. I'd love that. RB: Regina is on tour now. Make sure and snag a ticket to one of her shows or buy one of her records on vinyl on her website.