Authors: Alyssa Shelasky
I don’t have the answer, but I know it has something to do with keeping this sense of “togetherness” alive. We have to find a way to share more meaningful moments and create our own happy memories, even with his hideous hours. That’s how a strong foundation is made; that’s what the good life is about. But that’s not all. I need to be impassioned. Nothing extreme. Just a little heat, emotion, interaction. I’ve always had something up
my sleeve, a glimmer in my eyes, and a spring in my step.
What specifically can give me that feeling in Washington?
The second we’re home, I try not to fuck it up. I commit to attacking life on the Hill with the same blind faith and determination I’d put forth into everything else I’ve wanted to conquer in life. I lose interest in my usual “D.C. sucks” soliloquy, and I am bored by my old, bad attitude. In the morning, I send Chef off to work, then shower, blow-dry, and walk to Belga Café to think about my next move. Today, I’m making changes.
On my walk, a great song called “Rise Up” by Ben Lee plays on my iPod. I make it the theme of the day with so much vigor that had I been anywhere near downtown Manhattan, I might have tattooed the words on my wrist. I put my hands through my refreshingly clean hair, lean against a parking meter, watch the cars pass on Pennsylvania Avenue, and beg myself to
rise up
.
Rise up from the sleeplessness, the friendlessness, and the homesickness. Rise up from the restaurant, the hours, and the drama. Rise up from the neighbors who like us but judge us. Rise up from the gym and its unfit women with their untamed pubes. Rise up from the breakouts, breakdowns, and unbecoming bad moods. Please, girl, rise the hell up.
I start by thinking about what I can and cannot change.
What is the truth of the matter?
I know that I cannot change the circumstances of Chef’s career, or the opinions of his partners, or the demands of his publicists. Those are simply not malleable things. At least for now, I cannot change that our home is in D.C., and I can’t keep blaming it for everything unpleasant in my life.
But what can I change? What can give us that togetherness, considering the reality of our life?
I pull up a bar stool at Belga and wish for a second I had
someone with me to talk to about this, because I feel a breakthrough coming on.
“How’s it going over there?” says a man, practically on cue, with a faded flannel shirt and a great head of silver hair. He’s older, husky, and weathered, as if he lived on a houseboat or would be played by Robert Redford in an Oscar-nominated drama. “I’ve seen you before.”
He reminds me of my favorite high-school teacher, Mr. Winseck. “Winnie” made Kates, Anzo, and me scream with laughter because of his wicked sense of humor, suspicious smelling coffee, and hilarious, politically incorrect rants … all while teaching us about slavery, the sixties, and human struggle. Simply because of the resemblance, this guy feels safe to talk to. (Winnie recently passed away, and every day I imagine him and Jean playing cards and drinking gin up in heaven.)
“Yeah, I love it here at Belga,” I say, exaggerating, but thrilled to chat.
“But you always look so sad.”
“Nah, I’m just bored and a little off balance, and not sure what I’m doing here in D.C.,” I say, realizing this may be the first, natural, free-flowing conversation I’ve ever had in this city.
“That’s no good,” he says without a shred of insincerity. “Let me guess, you’re a writer?”
“How’d you know?”
“Both times I’ve seen you, you were reading, or writing, deep in thought, somewhere else. You were totally oblivious to anybody or anything.”
“That sounds about right,” I say, laughing. “Lots on my mind.”
“Plus, the shirt …” he says with a wink.
I look down and I’m wearing a dark gray T-shirt from Urban Outfitters that reads:
CAFFEINE. NICOTINE. ALCOHOL
.
Finally, someone finds me amusing
.
The beer has hit my bladder and I excuse myself to use the ladies’ room. There’s a person taking her time ahead of me.
Hurry up. I want to go back to my new friend!
When it’s my turn, I go fast, wash my hands, and fix my ponytail in the mirror. Returning to the bar, I see that my buddy has left a ten-dollar bill for his half-empty Amstel Light, and a lunch note for me. Just like the ones from my mom, minus the MTLI. “Be well, my friend! Jack. P.S. When life gets confusing, go back to the basics. The rest is noise!”
I fondly take his note and soak in the words as I walk home to C Street. Suddenly, I am walking fast, almost sprinting, motorized by inspiration from this beer-drinking angel sent by my dead history teacher, whom I had never seen before and would never see again.
I close my eyes and lie on our deep brown Danish couch.
Back to the basics … back to the basics …
Love.
Truth.
Health.
Sex.
Sleep.
Food.
And like a ton of bricks made of Parmigiano-Reggiano, the answer hits me: I am going to learn how to cook. That’s my answer! We never have anything to eat at home; I am tired of being a wallflower at all these food events we attend; and everybody knows there’s nothing that fosters togetherness like sharing a meal.
Why not?
It’s not like taking up Bikram yoga will feed my hungry boyfriend. Food is the path that will lift me up.
Starting with dinner. Like, tonight! Carrie Bradshaw used her stove for storing sweaters, but I will turn mine on.
As soon as I figure out how.
I spring over to Chef’s cookbooks, which are collecting dust on our bookshelf, grab as many piles as my arms can handle, and snatch a few food magazines stacked on his side of the bathroom. I dump out a shopping bag filled with twenty years of disregarded recipes from my mother, which I never had the heart to throw away. And soon, I am sitting Indian-style on the living-room floor, limber and unladylike, surrounded by dilapidated index cards, jagged magazine articles, and coffee-stained cookbooks.
In ruffling through all the food lit, it occurs to me that home cooks can actually create whatever they’re craving. That’s kind of cool. Feel like pad Thai? No problem. Fried chicken? Fine! It must feel like having magical powers to produce whatever your stomach desires. I edit down my food porn to pastas (which seem easy enough), but that’s like editing down my wardrobe to denim; it doesn’t make a dent. There’s a scrumptious-looking lasagna from an old
Bon Appétit
issue that’s giving me bedroom eyes. Lasagna seems like a smart thing to cut my teeth on, but I don’t recognize all of the ingredients, which makes me a little apprehensive.
“Isn’t Taleggio a DJ from London?” I text Chef, teasing, but not really.
“Cheese, baby, cheese …” he writes back two seconds later.
Cluelessly flicking through recipes, I’ve never felt so unsophisticated in my life. I can’t believe I went thirty-something years without knowing the difference between Swiss cheese and Swiss chard, or that “surf and turf” isn’t a resort activity. How did I graduate from college, sip wine coquettishly on all those third dates at Babbo and Nobu and Beppe, and manage to interview a couple of Michelin-starred chefs without picking up a single thing about food?
What a dope
.
That I don’t recognize anyone’s byline in these food magazines also unsettles me. I may not know my cuts of meat, but I do know my New York media. The pages are so unfamiliar—it’s like I was airdropped into a foreign country filled with Viking stoves and focaccia bread, and I don’t know who to trust. Staring at the pictures of ramekins and radishes, I am disoriented by so many choices—meaty things and leafy things and creamy things (or as the foodies say, “proteins” and “leafs” and “sweets”). They all look equally impossible and over my head. My heart rate is up, but I try to stay focused. I have to thin out the choices of pestos and potpies fast because they might as well be hate mail or hostage notes by the way my hands are starting to shake. I feel like I’m too drunk to see straight, which brings me a moment of clarity: I should get too drunk to see straight.
But first, I call my mother.
“Mom. Help. How do I make a menu?”
It’s not the “Mom. Help. I’m pregnant!” call she might have been waiting for. Still, she’s tickled pink, even if in utter disbelief. The Shelasky family talks about seasonal boyfriends, not seasonal produce. Our family meetings are a stir-fry of gossip and girl talk. We review love and sex, not restaurants and chefs (unless we’re sleeping with one). So, while my mother and I are both in shock over the sheer nature of my call, we go with it. I could have said I was a lesbian or flat broke or moving to Siberia and she would have bought it sooner, but forever my steady rock, she dishes out the best advice she can. “Don’t overdo it. Make one great thing and a simple salad with Grandma’s dressing. Think about the colors on the plate; make it beautiful.”
Searching for the one great thing, I shuffle through pictures of penne and tagliatelle, tossing out intimidating meals that sound better in foreign languages. It’s the end of summer,
so I avoid stews and soups. Anything too fishy or gamey must go too, because, well, that’s just gross. I contemplate a rack of lamb, which is one of Chef’s favorite foods. But a Jew making lamb for a Greek is culinary suicide by anybody’s standard, and I’d never been to a butcher.
My large pile of edible babble contains a lot of baked, bourgeois macaroni and cheese recipes, so I take it as a sign. It’s getting late and I have to commit. I collect them all, close my eyes, and pull just one. Deep inhalation. It’s Truffle and Cognac Cream Macaroni and Cheese, a photocopy from … oh, fuck my life …
Top Chef: The Cookbook
. The originator is a contestant from season one who I think is awesome but Chef finds really annoying. Considering the personality conflict, and that it might be easier to buy crack than truffles, I allow myself a do-over.
First I squeeze out a bit of enthusiasm and further eliminate any mac ’n’ cheese recipes involving Velveeta, squirt cheese, or reality TV. I do have
some
standards. When I spot a wrinkled-up
Martha Stewart Living
page featuring a well-tailored Gourmet Macaroni and Cheese with nutmeg and cheddar, I feel good enough to go with it. Like buying the bikini that makes you hate your body a little less than the others, it will do just fine.
The irony of Martha and me existing in the same breath, for even a second, isn’t lost on me. Behind bars maybe, but in the kitchen? Hilarious. I also laugh out loud when I realize that I’m making a dish that feeds twelve people. But, right now, the concept of halving the recipe and recalculating the measurements is too much to handle. The only thing I hate more than cooking is doing math.
My mother said to stick to a one-pot meal, but I panic and add a turkey meatloaf by Bobby Flay because I don’t yet understand the concept of restraint. Gourmet mac ’n’ cheese with turkey meatloaf, plus a simple arugula salad—slightly pedestrian
but pretty enough. Demure yellow from the macaroni, rich browns and purples from the meatloaf, and forest green from the arugula … I’m okay with it. Especially when I Google “What wine works well with meatloaf?” and learn that it must be red and fruity.
Fine by me
. Last but not least, I decide on a S’mores Brownie recipe for dessert from
Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals 2
. It’s no French
macaron
, but it’s not a heart-shaped Jell-O mold either. And I could die happy licking brownie batter, so I’m sold.
I grab a fuchsia Sharpie and neatly craft the perfect grocery list, which includes, well, everything. Even milk and eggs. A bit frazzled but tenacious, I stay in my sweats, slip on ballet flats and Ray-Bans, and walk to the car. I type “Whole Foods” into the GPS, even though I’ve been there before. Getting lost is the last thing I need today. I’ve got the list, the tote, and the determination. I want to get everything right.
While driving, I’m white-knuckled and nervous. The deflowering of a kitchen-phobe is no small feat. But inside my fear, there’s a beat of excitement. I imagine Chef’s sweet smile when he steps through the door and smells a dinner that doesn’t include seven-grain bread. I also feel pretty cool pretending to be a home cook, with my important grocery list and
MADE IN BROOKLYN
bag. The car windows are down, the National is playing, and my long, layered hair is pinned up just right. I look good in foodie.
At the market, I shop like a little old lady, moving gradually and reluctantly through the aisles, giving new meaning to the Slow Food movement. You would think I was cooking for the queen, the way I stoically approach the wine guy. “Hello, sir.… I’d like a red wine that would nicely complement a turkey meatloaf, please.” After several hours of sneaking carob-covered almonds, and taking pictures of myself in the produce
section to text to Chef, I think I have everything I need. Two hundred dollars later, I am carrying the ingredients for my first home-cooked meal.
Back on C Street, I uncork the wine before unloading the groceries. It’s 3:00 p.m., and I don’t know where to begin. I wrap a high-wasted apron—a tattered old, flowery thing that my mother had snuck in my moving boxes—just under my bra, take a sip of Pinot Noir, and lay out my recipes. I study Martha’s mac. She requires many pots and pans, which rubs me the wrong way, but whatever. The first thing the recipe calls for is six slices of bread. Crap. I didn’t add this to my grocery list because it seemed like an obvious staple in any human’s kitchen, but in our bread basket, I notice a shade of chartreuse on a loaf we’ve had for some time now. I’m off on the wrong foot. Hastily, I crumble the last of the Kashi crackers from the pantry and throw in some multigrain cereal to make up the difference. I pour some melted butter over the mix, per Martha, and set my alleged “bread crumbs” aside.
All cooks improvise, right?
For the white sauce (which Chef says on the phone sounds like a béchamel sauce.
Be-sha-who?
), I spastically grate the cheese, all seven wonders of it. The recipe requires a lot of whisking, so I stand at the stove, targeting my upper arm muscles, thinking of Madonna, and texting a video of myself to Chef. He writes back, “You’re clenching the spoon like a convict!”