Apron Anxiety Read online

  In order to protect the identities of those whom I’ve loved and fed, successfully or not, I’ve altered some names, details, and events in the story.

  Copyright © 2012 by Alyssa Shelasky

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  www.threeriverspress.com

  THREE RIVERS PRESS and the tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-95215-8

  Cover design by Jessie Sayward Bright

  Cover photograph Fuse/Getty Images

  v3.1

  To Mom, Dad, and Rach,

  who see the world with heart and humor

  and mean everything to me

  I would be displeased and scared shitless if my little girl started talking about wanting to be a chef. I guess it could be worse. She could talk about wanting to go OUT with a chef.

  —Anthony Bourdain, Daily Blender, March 2010

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  1. Raised by Drake’s

  2. Life on Fire

  3. Oui, Chef

  4. Capitol Hell

  5. Will Cook for Love

  6. Feeding Friends and Neighbors

  7. Unsavory

  8. An Interlude in Los Angeles

  9. The El Royale

  10. Shredded

  11. Benito Bagel and Other Exotic Things

  12. Market Fresh

  13. A Harmless Weekend in Washington

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Let’s be honest. I am not one of those food-obsessed people.

  I like food. But I am just as happy with a Pop-Tart from Costco as a tarte tatin from Paris. I don’t plan trips around the Tomatina tomato fight or street meat in Sri Lanka. My dreams are without rack of lamb, ramen rituals, or Eric Ripert.

  Until recently, I thought truffle shavings had something to do with chocolate, that escarole was escargot, and that sweetbread was, well, sweet bread. My best birthdays involve Carvel, not Bouchon. And even at the world’s best steak house, I am most excited by a clean baked potato and a dirty-minded man, not Kobe, Wagyu, or whatever.

  My last meal would be a pastrami sandwich followed by an entire jar of Nutella, not a night at the French Laundry washed down with a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem. I can’t even pronounce “Chateau d’Yquem”! And speaking of which, I am absolutely fine with crappy, even corked, wine. As long as it doesn’t taste like poison and it does make me feel like Penelope Cruz.

  Of course I do have some standards—I am not a barbarian or an Olive Garden goer—but I was not, as some might say, born to eat. It is not my raison d’être. Gluttony is my least favorite sin. If you were to see me perched on the floor of a bookstore in Brooklyn, I’d be rolling around in druggie memoirs and prison tales, not Julie, Julia, or Jamie Oliver.

  It feels liberating to confess that I once thought “kale” was the name of a rock band, that the Ladurée luxe macaron was the same as Passover’s canned macaroon, and that a growler involved a kinky bedroom, not a nice, cold beer. Five bucks’ worth of Manchego at New York’s legendary Murray’s Cheese is not my idea of a cheap thrill, nor is an afternoon of foraging, pickling, or preserving. I’m afraid, Alton Brown, that the etymology of cheddar, chard, and chanterelles cannot keep my attention for all the El Bulli—like experiences in the world. Oh, and I’d sooner discuss unwanted hairs than the meaning of umami.

  To some people, food can be better than sex. I am categorically not one of them. No food tastes as good as a great kiss, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll go even further: no food tastes as good as watching Little Miss Sunshine in my sweatpants, getting a Thai massage for ten dollars, reading a juicy book on a long train, finishing a spin class without cheating, listening to “Empire State of Mind” while walking the Brooklyn Bridge, or unhooking my bra after a hard day’s work.

  Alas, I am sorry to admit that I have had many pleasures that far exceeded even the most celestial meal. It’s just that those pleasures didn’t change my life. Something else did—something sweet, savory, and salty … and oftentimes unattractive, overcooked, and underseasoned. The truth is I was accidentally anchored by the apron. It happened “organically,” as in childhood dreams and crazy love, not farm-to-table and Alice Waters. But then again, this is my story about all of that.

  1.

  Raised by Drake’s

  Every morning of my life, my mother has eaten a packaged Devil Dog for breakfast.

  She dunks it into milky tea while skimming the New York Times, glancing at Good Morning America, and preparing for a day of real estate domination. Her “Devils” have been her mimosas, her morning stretch, her sun salutations, and her beloved first lick-of-the-lips for nearly sixty years. She brings them everywhere, from early morning meetings to trips around the world, stashed in leather briefcases, burlap bags, and woolly blazers. She buys them in bulk, hides them from the family (as if anyone would steal her dry, wannabe whoopie pies), and writes letters to the CEO of Drake’s when the taste or texture is “not quite right.” She is, after all, a full-blown Virgo.

  It’s an endearing, yet deranged, quirk of hers. Especially if you know my mother. She doesn’t drink alcohol, eat fast food, or engage in anything else that would piss off Michael Pollan. She religiously consumes at least five pieces of fruit, along with a small village of raw vegetables (all locally grown, of course), every single day. It’s not unusual to find her walking home from the farmers’ market blissfully biting into a glistening red pepper or a fat head of purple cabbage, the way one would a huge frosted cupcake. Lunch for her involves fresh eggs, nice cheese, crispy toast, or some peasantlike variation of such, and dinner is light and often vegetarian. My mother listens so carefully and respectfully to her body and its needs, she’s never had any issues with her weight or health. If you can get past her dirty little habit, you might even call her a purist.

  Being a locavore with a Devil Dog addiction isn’t the only trait that makes my mother, and by extension, my entire family, a bit idiosyncratic. My younger sister, Rachel, and I grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a bucolic town where do-gooder Irish and wealthy WASP intersect. As funny, touchy-feely, free-thinking Jews, we never quite belonged in either category, but we liked our uniqueness and had a lot of friends. It’s not like we were mouth-breathing, worm-collecting weirdos; we were just a little offbeat.

  For nursery school, my parents sent me to a New Age program at the Unitarian church, where I ate carob all day and splatter-painted my dreadlocked teacher’s Volkswagen Bug. When I was five years old, my mother took us to a production of Hair, a mirage of music, revolution, and raw penis; we gave it a standing ovation. By third grade, I wrote screenplays, confessionals, and fan letters to reporters at the New York Times. I played Suzuki-method violin and picked up the bassoon because it was so awkward and oafish that I felt bad for it. I acted and danced, atrocious at both, but nonetheless, I was passionate about all my hobbies. I was also wild about shag haircuts, redecorating my room, and winning limbo contests. Naturally, I held several lucrative tag sales, a biannual backyard art installation, and weekly fashion shows of jelly bracelets and bandannas. Everyone loved me or hated me, and so it would go.

  But I was prone to trouble, too. At seven years old, I traumatized my parents by disappearing at the mall, only to be found on the lower level, giving an interview about shopping trends to the local TV news. (A few years later, at the same mall, I swiped Chanel No. 5 from Lord & Taylor and got arrested.) At age eight
, a rotten friend convinced me to fake my own neighborhood kidnapping … which got way out of hand, and I felt bad about it forever. Around fourth grade, a rude boy called some new girl a “fat slut” and I slugged him in the stomach, getting me sent home immediately. Around that time, I practically forced our neighbor’s teenage son to whip it out and then pee in a Coke can, which I couldn’t not tell the world about, branding the poor kid a “sick-perv” to the gossips on the block. And even before I could spell “adolescence,” I was obviously caught in some filthy rounds of the game Doctor.

  The thing that kept me on the side of sensible, even as a young kid, was that I required an absurd amount of stimulation, followed by an absurd amount of personal space. A writer from the womb, I kept countless journals about life, death, and dreamy boys—all of equal importance. Some thoughts were so dark that I should have been committed; others were so frivolous that I could have been on The Hills. But there was always that duality: writer with a heavy heart, and wild child with a stethoscope on her crotch.

  I definitely didn’t get the badass in my bloodstream from my dad. Edward Shelasky is a gentle, easygoing, law-abiding citizen. He’s a simple Red Sox—rooting, Monopoly-playing, Seinfeld-loving “Masshole,” and the youngest of three children from the lovely and successful couple Milton and Dorothy Shelasky, my grandparents. The Shelaskys had a third-generation uniform business (which my father eventually took over), and they raised him to be quiet, warm, and understanding. In other words, the perfect father to two dramatic daughters. My sister and I may idolize my mom, but we feel as equally blessed to have the world’s most attentive father, who played with us as kids and listens to us as adults. Both Milton and Dorothy passed away before I turned thirteen, but I adored them so, and I can still taste my grandmother’s luscious brisket and my grandfather’s stash of frozen Snickers. They were wonderful grandparents … even if they always suspected my mother to be a crazy, hippie, gypsy freak.

  Laurie Temkin Shelasky, my mom, comes from a struggling, salt-of-the-earth family. True survivors. Her loving father, Lazar Temkin, was a good but complicated man. He died when she and her five siblings were children. Along with my wise, beautiful, ever-resilient grandmother, Dorothy Pava, the Temkin children had many hardships and tragedies, but they survived through endless laughter and fierce loyalty to each other. My aunts, uncles, and cousins are always the first to have my back and are fully responsible for the one thing I know to be true in life—that family is everything. They may not be perfect, but there aren’t better people than the loud, lawless, rambunctious, rough-around-the-edges Temkins.

  The Temkins also have a contagious secret language. “P.T.” is shorthand for “poor thing,” like people born without faces, or my shy sister who threw up on every school field trip. “O.D.D.” stands for “odd,” but dangerously so, like the Unabomber or Octomom. “N.G.” is “no good,” like my friend who made me fake the kidnapping. And my favorite is the family motto, borrowed from The Big Lebowski: “Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.” This has evolved into any one of us screaming, “I ate the freakin’ bear!” or “Bear Stew!” whenever something goes our way. And for the Temkins, that isn’t every day.

  One time, as a kid visiting New York, I was on the bus with my mother when a bloated man in Burberry, complete with croissant in his beard and crust in his eyes, yelled at me for resting my pocketbook on an unused seat. Mind you, the entire bus was empty except us. “Were you raised by wolves, you stupid girl?” he mumbled bitterly. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry until my fearless mother—the same woman who grounded us only if we were rude or remotely unkind to others—came to the rescue with fangs: “Actually, she was raised by me, you fat fuck!” My mom and I laughed so hard we had to exit the bus to contain ourselves.

  Accordingly, with the fusion of the elegant Shelaskys and the untamable Temkins, my sister and I turned out somewhere between highbrow and hillbilly. We are Bergdorf Goodman and Bob’s Discount Store; we are Veuve Clicquot and watermelon wine coolers; we are JAPs and townies. We are … who we are.

  Our family ate almost every breakfast and dinner together, not that any of us helped Mom with the preparations. We were not spoiled financially, but for some reason, we never lifted a finger when it came to getting fed. My mother’s time in the kitchen was her private pleasure. I think that because her childhood was so chaotic, the kitchen gave her a sense of control. She baked before anyone woke up in the morning, or when we were at school, and to be honest, I’m not even sure how or when dinner got done. Even though she’d always rather be near her children than not, we instinctively left her alone when she was at the stove in her apron.

  My mother approached ingredients like a European. She’d drive an hour away, toward the Berkshires, for rural, street-side produce stands almost daily. Rarely did she purchase anything canned or processed at the supermarket, and needless to say, she’s never “nuked” a thing in her life. (How to work a microwave is still a mystery to all of us.) Mom baked most of her own breads and all of our family’s desserts from scratch. With her riffs on Moosewood and Silver Palate recipes, she made delicious soups, hearty stews, and simple proteins, experimenting with couscous, quinoa, and other rustic dishes that didn’t really show up in the suburbs during the 1980s and ‘90s. When we did have meat, it was nothing fancy, just whatever cut was on sale, proudly served to the family and cooked “extra well done.” Fish was infrequent and also baked to a crisp. My mother didn’t know or care about the secret rules to fine dining, where steaks are bloody and fish is gently seared, and ironically, it’s that disregard for cooking conventions that made her so comfortable in our happy, terra-cotta kitchen. We might have held our utensils in the wrong hand and had inappropriate (yet unthinkably funny) conversations at the dinner table, but we drank sparkling Pellegrino with fresh lemon, sat with excellent posture, and spooned out our sauces and gravies from cherry red ramekins.

  We also semi kept kosher—not so stringently, but enough that pig roasts and shrimp cocktail were totally off the menu. And my dad had perilously high cholesterol, so that meant light on the red meat, treif or not. For those reasons and the irrefutable fact that my folks were also a bit frugal, we almost never went to restaurants. When we did, it was always Italian. Mom loved a fresh marinara; Dad loved just being out and about with his girls. And we never ordered in either. Besides once with a babysitter and a Domino’s pizza, I have no recollection of a delivery guy ever coming to our front door.

  For school lunches, I brown-bagged it with hits and misses like cold chicken salad made with grapes and cashews on homemade whole-wheat bread, or leftover veal loaf with ketchup on a fluffy onion roll, or the dreaded splatter of chopped liver atop a wedge of crunchy iceberg lettuce (which resulted in a cafeteria-wide gag reflex). Suffice it to say, sugary soft drinks and fake foods like Slim Jims were foreign concepts to me. While other kids had snacks like Cool Ranch Doritos and rainbow Fruit Roll-Ups, our accoutrements were always two pieces of bruised fruit … and a note from Mom. Sometimes she would include a poem. She’d quote Thoreau: “Live the life you’ve dreamed.” Or W.C. Fields: “A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.” And most often, Cora, her hippie shrink: “Balance, form, rhythm, and order.” Other times she just said “Hi.” No matter what, my mother’s words were always signed with “I love you MTLI,” which, in case you don’t have a parent who holds family meetings from the bathtub, means More Than Life Itself.

  If I have one small qualm about food and my upbringing, it has something to do with frog legs, in that frog legs … and kimchi … and baby octopus … and drunken goat are examples of foods that we were never exposed to. There was no emphasis placed on adventurous and exotic eating; no expeditions in the name of new food experiences, unless you count apple picking. Compared to the white bread and mayo around us, we thought we were eccentric eaters, of course, with our ratatouille and butternut squash, but we really were not. Farro salads and toasted pine nuts might have been a sig
n of subtle sophistication back then, but it’s not like Andrew Zimmern would have knocked down our door to tape an episode of Bizarre Foods.

  At least we grew up with an inherent love of healthy food and a genuine disinterest in Mc-anything. It’s just a minor shame. Had Mom encouraged us to be as adventurous, exploratory, and outside-the-box in our taste buds as she did in art, travel, literature, and especially love, Rachel and I would have grown to be world-class gourmets. Rather, we approach food the way she does, positively, if somewhat reservedly: eating tons of fruit, raw vegetables, and light, simple meals. Our inherent eating style might not be daring, but it’s nice, moderate, and devoid of most crap. We are in tune with our bodies (which, if we listen carefully enough, always tell us when we need fat, protein, roughage, etc.) and like Mom, we also have our weaknesses, and welcome them without any guilt or inner anguish.

  I wouldn’t touch a Devil Dog if it were the last empty calorie on earth, but I sure had my own sugary habits. Growing up, we were technically allowed “one junk per day,” which I interpreted as the consumption of an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. For an entire year, I ate one pint a day. I was long, lanky, and always in good health, and no one blinked at my grotesque ice cream intake, not even my quasi—health nut mom. With a spoon in one hand and a pencil in the other, I would close the doors to the den, pour my heart into my tattered journals, and my junk into my bottomless stomach. I went through the same phase with oversize Italian cannolis; “Lynn Papale’s cheesecake,” named after the recipe from one of my mother’s best friends; and gooey banana bread with extra chocolate chips. If the chocolate chip quotient was just right, I’d eat half a loaf per day.

  The moment high school started, Ben & Jerry weren’t the only boys in my life anymore. I was totally carefree when it came to my sexuality (though I was actually an inexperienced virgin until senior year). The summer I turned fifteen, I went to sleepaway camp, Camp Ramah, as a skinny little runt and came back as Jessica Rabbit. I gained twenty-five pounds in two months, taking me from a training bra to a double D. It was a fascinating turn of events, and everyone back in Longmeadow was entranced by my new assets, especially me. One sip of beer and I’d take off my top and flash an entire room of horny teenagers. Blame my early exposure to the Age of Aquarius, but I didn’t see anything wrong with it. This became my shtick. I liked a reaction. I’d accept any dare, too. (My friend Andy McArthur swears I once humped an Oreo cookie, but I don’t even know how that would work.) After a few weeks of this kind of behavior, my group of girlfriends anointed my most protective pal, Anzo, to be my “agent.” I could only strip if she supervised and approved. Safety first.