Life From Scratch

by Melissa Ford

  Which just makes him ten kinds of cruel. It’s one thing when I stopped telling him about my dreams and wants a few years into the marriage. It’s another thing to know that he has now seen what I’ve wanted in my own black and white words, yet he has still chosen to ignore it.

  What’s the point in him reading my blog if he doesn’t care enough about me to actually reach out and let me know that he misses me too? Or if he doesn’t miss me, that he at least knows that I miss him. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, I mean, it would be equally cruel to call me and say, “Hey, Rach, I just want you to know that I don’t miss you, but I couldn’t help but notice how much you miss me when I was showing my new girlfriend your blog, and we were laughing about you.”

  On second thought, perhaps I’d rather not receive a phone call.

  Fine, let him read. I’ll just deliver him tasty morsels of how great my life is without him. My life is pretty great without him. I just had a wonderful first date with a gorgeous Spanish man—who is more endearing and attractive than Adam and has time for the Guggenheim. Gael may not have Adam’s brilliance, but he’s funnier than Adam was towards the end of our relationship. And he doesn’t read my blog without telling me, as far as I know so far, so that’s ten extra points right there.

  “I think my next blog post has to be titled Adam Goldman Has a Very Tiny Penis,” I tell Arianna and Ethan.

  “Don’t bait him, Rach. Just ignore him. Why bother communicating directly with him on any level—even snarky? I mean, really, would you ever want him back?”

  I glance at Arianna and then at Ethan, as if they know the correct answer. The Adam I left at the end of the marriage? Not a chance. The Adam from graduate school who brought me lattes while I studied and listened to me complain about my classmates and came up with nicknames for our professors? A little bit. I’d like that guy back.

  But he’s gone, evolved, changed. And no, I wouldn’t want to be the old me again, waiting for my husband to come home, wearing a hole in the sofa across from the clock, gritting my teeth and hissing out hellos when he kisses me awake in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t want to be that silent, lonely woman again.

  As promised, Gael calls that night while I am trying to master risotto. I hadn’t been worried about trying the rice dish until the cookbook mentioned that most people are afraid to attempt risotto which, of course, pressed my red, Terror Alert button. I’ve been told to constantly watch the rice, so I am constantly watching the rice as if it is a baby crawling towards all of my uncovered electrical outlets. I am nervously adding liquid like a bartender fearful that the belligerent drunk at the end of counter is going to ask for another drink.

  It is very hard to concentrate on the rice when someone is speaking with a sexy Spanish accent in my left ear.

  “I had a very good time last night,” he tells me. I can hear a camera clicking and rewinding in the background. “I’ve been smiling about it all day. One of my jobs asked me why I am so happy.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told her that I met a pretty girl.”

  Oh my fucking God, I am the pretty girl.

  All thoughts of Adam Goldman flit out of my brain like the end of a dust storm.

  “What was the job today?” I ask, not addressing the fact that he has just called me pretty.

  “A singer. She is a guitar player. She wanted head shots taken for her envelopes she sends out. What are you doing right now?”

  I touch my hand to my messy hair, hoping beyond hope that he isn’t going to suggest that we get together right now. I have spent most of the day glued to an Iron Chef marathon, and my sweatshirt has the potato chip crumbs to prove it. I’m only attempting the broccoli risotto because it seems like the sort of carb you can pass off as healthy. My face is pre-period blotchy and greasy, my hair limp from lack of shower.

  “Cooking. Broccoli risotto,” I add.

  “I don’t want to bother you,” Gael says.

  “You’re not bothering me,” I hurry to add. I don’t want him in my apartment, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to hold him on the phone. “How do people find you? You know, for jobs?”

  “Some through the wedding work or my brother-in-law, Paolo. He is friendly. He walks up to people, just starts talking. And that is how I get a lot of jobs.”

  “Because he flirts?”

  “No, no, not flirting. He’s married to my sister! No, it’s another word.”

  “We call it schmoozing in New York.”

  “Is this where you’re from? New York City?” he asks me.

  “Near here. In New Jersey. But everyone from my town ends up here at some point. Do you go home a lot?”

  “To Madrid? No, no, too expensive. It costs a lot of money for the plane ticket. I’ve been back once. I miss it a lot.”

  “What do you miss?”

  “Madrid has a different energy. If New York is a pale ale, Madrid is a dark stout. New York is thin. The energy is thin.”

  “How can you say the energy is thin here! New York is gordo. Muy gordo.”

  I like thinking about places in terms of food. I start to wonder about the edible make-up of the places I’ve lived and visited. If this apartment is a Cheerio, my last apartment was cinnamon toast. If New Jersey is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, New York is a roasted eggplant panini. I give the rice another stir and tip a small amount of simmering broth into the pot.

  If Adam is stale toast that is looking more unappealing by the hour, Gael is a cup of salted almonds.

  He says, “I’ve found many other Madrileños in the city, and we are like a little family.”

  “What do you miss the most?” I ask.

  “In this little café near the Bilbao metro stop, the . . . ” the rest of the sentence is garbled Spanish that sounds like “Kramer’s cats a-lunging.” I grab a piece of paper and scrawl it down, determined to surprise him with the best plate of lunging cats he has ever had. “It is so thick that you can turn the spoon upside down, and it doesn’t fall off.” I jot down a few more notes: thick, soup?, sticks to spoon.

  “I want to make dinner for you,” I say spontaneously. “I want to cook for you again. Something Spanish.”

  I can figure out Spanish food, right?

  “Jamon?” he teases.

  “Not jamon. I’ll figure out something. Are you free on Thursday?”

  “Thursday is perfect,” Gael tells me.

  I stir the risotto, and we make our plans. I use my thumb to rub at a spot on my left hand’s ring finger, and I realize that I am feeling the callous left behind by my old ring. Out with the old, in with the new. Gael’s Madrileño accent purrs into my ear.

  Heart, do you hear that? I have a new boyfriend and a bad-ass Me&Ro ring. Because it’s all about showing your heart who is in control. And while mine may dart around, slipping out of my hands every time I try to grab it like a greased pig, even the heart will succumb to a good, old-fashioned, extended-foot trip.

  I stand in front of the bag of sugar, a small bottle of vanilla extract, and two dozen eggs, still in their fragile shells. I set down the recipe next to the standing mixer and fit on the whisk attachment. If this were a boxing match, a little bell would be sounding in the corner of the ring. It’s on.

  I decide that I’m going to master the angel food cake tonight, photograph it for the blog, and perhaps engage in a bit of hyperbole over how easy it was for me to make it; how delicious it tastes. You know, I’m just your run-of-the-mill Betty Crocker, whipping up a cake for her new boyfriend and writing about it so her ex-husband knows just what he’s missing out on these days.

  The preparation is what has been my downfall, keeping me from actually getting to the point where the cake goes in the oven. I’ve learned that I’m terrible at separating eggs. I can do the first few, but then I start getting sloppy and soon, there are bits of shell and threads of yolk trailing through the whites, and I need to start over yet again. This time, I am taking it slow, using multiple cups t
o transfer only the clean whites into the mixing bowl.

  I tap the first one against the rim of the glass bowl and gently pry open the crack that appears across the shell, gutting the inside. The white slides serenely into my bowl, I discard the yolk in a nearby cup, and move the first egg white to the mixing bowl. One down, eleven to go.

  I went online before attempting to bake and looked up the dates of the Kandinsky exhibit. It’s coming to an end in the next few days, and I consider buying two tickets, but it seems forward, considering I’ve already asked Gael over for dinner. I consider buying one ticket and taking myself there on a date, my own private self love affair, but it would be too lonely to walk through the stark museum on my own. I associate the space with being in love; with wanting to show another person something I’ve found, something I’ve noticed. I can’t think of anything lonelier than going to an art museum on my own and having no one to discuss it with afterwards. All that unused excitement. I’d rather miss it than see it in a vacuum.

  It’s a shame that I’m so unevolved.

  I neatly open two more eggs and the whites travel from bowl to bowl, the yolks discarded wastefully. This isn’t a time to feel badly about chickens-who-might-have-been. The stakes go up with each egg. I break the yolks in the next four eggs, as if I’ve jinxed myself by simply considering how I’m almost a quarter way towards starting my cake.

  I considered cheating; considered buying a carton of egg whites straight from the dairy section, but that isn’t a challenge. Even if no one else knew that I had used store-bought whites, I would know that I used store-bought whites. It’s like the art museum. Even if I could get something out of it by going alone, even if no one knew I spent eighteen dollars and the afternoon by myself, walking by all the other couples who probably met on Datey.com, I would know that I spent my afternoon alone, alone, alone.

  Eating lunch alone, seeing an exhibit alone. It’s one thing to be alone in my apartment; it’s another thing to be alone and out on the town. People always ask “Who did you go with?” when you tell them about a movie you saw or a concert you attended. “Just myself,” I’d have to answer. And beyond that, even if I never volunteered the information, I’d know, and that would be bad enough.

  I get six egg whites in bowl and face down the final six eggs in the carton, a killing field of egg yolks and whites still in their cracked shells scattered across the sink. There is no more room for mistakes, not unless I want to run back out to the bodega and admit that I ruined twelve extra eggs in the process of making one damn angel food cake.

  I work slowly, tapping the shell gently along the circumference, watching the enamel-like surface splinter apart. I divide four in a row perfectly, sliding the whites into the mixing bowl, which looks like I have filled it with gelatinous water, splashing against the sides each time a new egg white guest enters the mix. My thumb darts into the fifth egg yolk, and I try to beat time by quickly dripping the white out of the egg, but a long thread of yolk comes with it.

  Shit.

  I try to scoop out the yolk with the tines of a fork, but it mixes deeper into the egg white, practically disappearing into the ether. Shit and shit.

  But what can I do except hope for the best and continue on because I’m not going to trot back to the bodega—not for a cake. Maybe for a pre-period chocolate bar, but not for extra eggs. I break the final one, holding my breath as I peer at the egg whites slipping into the bowl. All clear. I dump them in the mixer, add the water I’ve already measured out and the extract, and turn on the beaters.

  The eggs foam and whiten, coming together somewhat, though not in the way that the recipe shows in the how-to pictures. My egg whites are a runny mess, grainy and lumpy. The egg whites in the photograph have a beautiful, unblemished sheen. I whip them longer, turning up the speed on the stand mixer. Every time I turn off the mixer and consult the book, the egg whites start to disintegrate, turn back into water. I add the sugar anyway, even though the whites are not forming the stiff peaks I was promised.

  This is all the fault of that stupid thread of yolk.

  I walk away from the stand mixer and check my email, return and peer into the bowl and back to the recipe. And that’s when I notice the unopened container of cream of tartar, the plastic safety wrap still in place over the lid.

  I turn off the frothy whites, dump in the flour, which bubbles around the top of the egg mixture before sinking down towards the bottom of the bowl. I take the mixer off the stand and dump the whole thing in the sink over the broken and discarded eggs.

  I should have just gone out and purchased a cake. Photographed it and lied. I snap off the preheating oven and drop the angel food cake pan back into the cabinet. I would have been the only one who knew that I hadn’t even tried to make the cake, the only one who knew that it was courtesy of some nameless Manhattan bakery.

  Perhaps this is the universe’s way of telling me that I should use my cooking powers for good, and not engage in spite baking.

  I try to put my cake disaster out of my mind by preparing for my next date with Gael. I sit down on the library floor with four Spanish cookbooks and scan all of the indexes for recipes that begin with the letter K (Kramer) and quickly switch to the letter C (Cramer) when it becomes clear that the Spanish are not big fans of the letter K.

  I look at the italicized titles that are interspersed between the English ingredients. Codorniz asada en escabeche. Cocido de pollo con chorizo y garbanzos. I repeat my phrase over and over again: Cramer’s cats a-lunging. Cra Mer Cat Za Lunja. Cramacatzalunja. Unfortunately, there is no recipe that resembles my perfectly constructed, made-up, Spanish word.

  This is like the dating woman’s version of nesting. Hominess from food. It feels like a bit of a cheap shot, an obvious choice, to cook Spanish food for him when I know he misses home, but I convince myself that I’m just giving the man what he wants. I want him to know that I am the kind of woman who will give my time to another person, listen to what they want, pick up on small clues as to what would make them happy.

  I do, in other words, everything Adam didn’t do.

  And I hope that this meal is enough to warrant a third date.

  I drag two of the more promising books up to an information desk and search out the one librarian I know who is most likely to know Spanish. Miguel is in the back, working on a re-shelving cart, so I wait semi-patiently for him to make it out to the front desk, trying not to notice how overheated I’m becoming in the library nestled inside my winter coat.

  “Hey, Rachel!” Miguel says, pushing his cart aside to come over to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. He turns back to another librarian and tells her the cart is ready for one of the volunteers. He joins me in the vacant chair and peers at the cover of my book. “You’re working on Spanish food now? Mastered all those basic books?”

  “Mastered . . . well, I wouldn’t call it that. But I’m trying to find a recipe. It’s Spanish . . . as in Spain Spanish. But I thought you might be able to figure it out.”

  “Shoot,” Miguel tells me, and then scrunches up his face in confusion as I slowly tell him about Cramer’s cats a lunging. “Are you kidding? Seriously, is your Spanish that bad?”

  “Miguel, I don’t know anything. Help me; I have to find this recipe. All I know is that it’s something thick that can stick to a spoon.”

  “So it’s like a stew?”

  I pull my note out of my pocket. “It’s thick. It may be a soup. It sticks to a spoon when you turn it upside down.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Cramer’s cats a-lunging. Cramacatzalunja.”

  “Wait, say it a few more times fast like that.”

  “Cramacatzalunja. Cramacatzalunja. Cramacatzalunja.”

  “Crema? Crema something?”

  I flip to the index and scan the list from the bottom up aloud in what I hope is passable Spanish. Crema de Salmorejo. Crema de Purrusalda. Crema de Esparrago. Crema Catalana.

  “Say your word and then read the list of choice
s again.”

  On our second run-through on the list, we reach the same conclusion at the same time. “Crema Catalana. Cramacatzalunja.”

  “Brilliant, chica. Though you have to work on the pronunciation,” Miguel tells me. “You’re making this for someone?”

  I flip to the recipe. It seems to be like a Spanish version of crème brulee. Thankfully, one that doesn’t require the little blowtorch. And one that I could actually follow. “Yeah, he’s just a friend.”

  “I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

  I look up from the book. “No, no, I meant that I have this friend, and he’s from Spain, and I just wanted him to feel like he’s at home because he can’t get back very often, and he told me that this is his favorite—”

  “Rach, you don’t have to justify it to me. You’ve been divorced for a year. You’re allowed to go on a date,” Miguel tells me.

  “It’s only been nine months,” I say, not sure why I feel the need to correct him. But it feels like under a year is different from over a year. Or just a year. A year. My ex-anniversary is luckily a few days after my divorce date so I get all the mourning over with during one week of the year.

  “Nine months, whatever. All I’m saying is that I’m happy for you if this friend is more than just a friend.”

  I shrug my shoulders and stand up. “Thank you. For helping me find the recipe.”

  “No problem,” Miguel says. “I’m here for all my Spanish-deficient friends.”

  I don’t know why I feel so defensive with Miguel. I mean, I do want Gael to be more than a friend. And it’s not like I want to reiterate that I’m single so Miguel will ask me out. I can’t really explain my general unease of admitting that I’m dating someone to Miguel when I gleefully squeal about my upcoming date to Arianna.

  At the checkout desk, I notice a pamphlet that has been discarded, probably originally picked up from the racks by the door. Are you going through a divorce? it asks in bold red letters. ¿Usted está pasando por un divorcio? And what else can I do but see it as a sign because the answer is that, Yes, I guess I still am.