One day we visit Jill and Beth, at Alison Brod Public Relations, the glammed-out PR firm where they both now work. The girls shower Chef in swag from their clients—Sephora skincare, Godiva chocolates, Havaianas flip-flops. He’s floored by my friends’ warmth and generosity, walking out with five bags of freebies, and hugs and kisses from a dozen blushing girls. “Um, your new boyfriend is really hot … and has really big feet,” Beth, who married her first boyfriend, giggles into the phone later that night. “You’re great together, Lys.”
On a muggy Tuesday morning, I’m in my office pricing out train tickets for the weekend when Chef calls and says, “Coffee break?” What a surprise! He’s in New York? I run downstairs, where he’s holding a cappuccino from my favorite local bakery, and an important-looking envelope.
“What are you doing next week, and the week after that?”
“Working, visiting you, the usual. Why?”
“Because remember how I said my dream was to take the love of my life to Greece?”
“Yeah?” I squint, slowly slipping into shock.
“Well, Lyssie, that’s you. Will you come with me to Greece?”
He has arranged and paid for the whole thing. It’s the end of August, our three-month anniversary, and he’s taking me to the villa he shares with his family, for fifteen days. I am speechless. We’re going to have it all to ourselves. He took the train in just to see my reaction.
When I tell Liz, my boss, that I’ll be using up all my vacation days and darting off to Europe to be with my new chef boyfriend, she immediately gives her full approval. Liz loves hearing about my life, and because she grew up in the seventies with five sisters in San Francisco, there’s nothing she hasn’t seen or heard. “Keeping up with the Kardashians is easier than keeping up with me, right?” I say, twirling out of her office.
My family is also thrilled for me. They’ve treasured Chef ever since they met him, when he told them a hysterical story about waking up in a hospital room with his frowning mother, a disturbed nurse, and a mysterious case of loud, uncontrollable flatulence. That night at their loft, my mother made everyone extra well done steaks burned down to hockey pucks, and Chef, bless his heart, asked for seconds.
Getting to Greece is a saga of its own. Chef is as disorganized as he is romantic, and there’s mayhem involving all things customs, passports, and visas. But after seventy-two hours of smoked almonds, Bourne identities, and broken sleep, we arrive at the port of a village, where a beady-eyed taxi driver takes us to the house. The orange sun is just coming up.
Perched on a cliff at the end of a narrow road and framed in exotic flowers, olive branches, hummingbirds, and clotheslines, the villa is more like a pretty little beach house than a sprawling ancient estate. We find the hidden key nestled in the outdoor wood-burning oven and let ourselves into our private haven. The inside of the house is lovely and understated, and already, I never want to leave. We haven’t slept in about two days, but before we crash, Chef finds the keys to the blue truck sitting in the driveway, leads me outside, and buckles me into the passenger seat. Delirious, I don’t ask where we’re going.
Driving down the steep roads of this gorgeous seaside village, I stare at the views layered in lemon trees, mountaintops, and an aquamarine ocean, while Chef stops at the market down the street that’s just opening for its morning business. Then he drives us down the coast. It’s astounding that a guy who can’t remember to close the front door, and sometimes isn’t sure of the month or year, can find his way through these rocky roads like he’s never lived anywhere else. He hasn’t been back to Greece in years, but he is in his element; he is by the sea.
Chef parks the car at a private cove, and we walk, holding hands, down to the beach. I sit at the edge, where the waves meet the sand, as Chef rolls up his pants and opens his market bag. He takes out a hardened baguette, perhaps a day or two old, breaks it in half, and sprinkles salt water all over the insides. Using his bent knee as his cutting board, he slices some very ripe tomatoes and takes apart a huge hunk of feta. Sitting in the rocks and shells, barefoot, jet-lagged, and awestruck, I realize that he’s making me reginatta, the dish he described in his interview. We eat, kiss, and cry. It’s almost too much to process that we’re both experiencing the phenomenon of a dream coming true. I wanted to be with him before we even met, and he wanted to be on this beach before he knew with whom. Unbelievable.
We sleep away the rest of the day and resurface the next morning feeling fresh, swiftly falling into our daily ritual. For the next two weeks, I wake up first and make us a pot of coffee, a vital activity I have cultivated over the past few years. He wakes up two hours later, first calling me back to bed, then boiling eggs to go with toast and homemade apricot marmalade (brought over by a nice, nosy Greek neighbor). Over breakfast on the porch, with bed heads and pajamas, we decide which beach or covelike “crevice of love,” as he likes to call them, to explore. I pack our CDs for the car ride, books for me, and diving gear for him, and we get in our bathing suits and go.
Lunch is an ice cream, or a couple of Mythos beers, and when we get too sunburned, hungry, or horny, we head back to the villa by way of the market. The thing about Chef and cooking is that when he’s not in his restaurant, he really can’t be bothered. This doesn’t disappoint me one bit. Our meals are low-key wherever we are, but I’m still careful not to cross the line between adorably foodie-illiterate and downright stupid.
At the tented, outdoor markets, we shop for the glorious food basics I grew up with—fruit, cheese, yogurt, bread, and cakes—with a few delicious diversions. I can’t say no to baklava and he’s a lamb gyro junkie. One après-beach afternoon, Chef waits in the car while I run outside to buy a few bags of succulent peaches and plums for the house. My selection looks outstanding, but when I feed him a rock-hard peach, he scrunches his face and tells me it’s totally not ripe! I’m not sure where I got the idea, but I had always assumed all fruit should be hard and crunchy like apples. He delights in calling me out on that one (and I still prefer nectarines hard as tennis balls).
For dinner, we eat casually and compatibly, popping into the local trattoria for Greek salads, a shared order of pasticcio, and maybe a few bites of sweet, giant baked beans. While eating gelato or ice-cream sandwiches, we walk home, watching for shooting stars.
On our last night in Greece, we have to pack up our things and close down the house for the season. I can’t seem to fit all my sarongs and straw hats into my suitcase with all the evil-eye charms and jars of honey I’ve bought for my family. Chef nonchalantly suggests that I leave my beachwear here. “You’re going to need everything next year, aren’t you?” he says, with no clue how much his suggestion means to me.
Flying home, we review our upcoming schedules, with me in New York and him in D.C., and suddenly the long-distance just seems insane. It takes a two-minute conversation to decide that we should move in together in Washington, and by the time the plane lands, I’ve already e-mailed my boss, Liz, that we need to talk.
The same day I return to New York, I tell everyone that it’s official. I am leaving town and moving to Washington, D.C., to be Chef’s writerly girlfriend, who wears off-the-shoulder T-shirts and says provocative things. Yes, me, in the nation’s capital, where I have no roots, no friends, no facialist, no freelance work, no favorite homeless guy, no transgendered Starbucks girl, no go-to spin instructor—nothing other than my unbelievable new boyfriend and his uncontaminated, hippie-like heart. We’ll light up the city, grow Chef’s business, make babies, and map out a beach house halfway between his restaurant and my family. Or something like that.
I give People as much notice as they need, which most of my colleagues use as precious time to dissuade me from “throwing away my career.” They’re not trying to be negative. It’s just not the kind of culture at the magazine where women leave their promising jobs with full benefits and car service just because they’ve met scruffy guys with great hair who whoosh them away to the Greek Islands. I can bar
ely look at Liz, who’s been like a big sister to me since the day she brought me in for a formal interview, when I couldn’t help but blow off all the super-corporate questions and fixate on her translucent skin and uncanny resemblance to Julianne Moore. A seasoned editor with supreme grace, Liz has done her best to keep me on track ever since, and because I respect her so, it’s my great pleasure to deliver her good work. But like my mother, my sister, and the other good women in my life, Liz also knows that my mind is made up on moving to D.C. She accepts that I’m three parts love, one part logic.
I have a good-bye lunch with J.D. Heyman, another top editor at the magazine and a smart, funny, straight-shooting guy that everyone at People really respects. Unlike Liz, he’s openly apprehensive. “I know you really like this person, Alyssa, but are you sure you want to do this?” he says, looking me directly in the eye. It’s not like J.D. to get so personal. “I’m asking you to wait it out. Give it a little more time, will ya?” J.D. recently guided me through my first cover story, a huge profile on the actresses from Sex & the City, an enviable assignment that brought me so much joy. He worries I’ll feel depleted without New York’s incomparable energy and the camaraderie of being around other people like me. While too gentlemanly to say so, I’m sure, J.D. has also noticed my habit of rushing dangerously into romance, further validating his concern. “New York will always be here,” I ultimately tell him, with a trusting smile. “And the bus is only twenty bucks.”
The few people who are excited for me are mostly friends who are Top Chef fans. They think I’ll get invited to the best dinner parties, have barbecues with Bobby Flay, fly to France with Food & Wine. But I tell them that even though it’s what intially drew me to him, the “celebrity-chef shitshow” is the last reason I’m uprooting my life. Turns out, Chef’s career is my least favorite thing about him. Owning a restaurant is a grueling, self-vandalizing profession—I can see that already—and his place has been open only a few months. And being on TV, in my very jaded opinion, is overrated. It can be lucrative if you’re prepared to play the game, but show-business whoredom is not for the fainthearted. It can make you, and it can break you.
Nonetheless, Chef likes the taste of celebrity; the validation fulfills something inside him. And so, I feed the beast. I help him hire a publicist and an agent, both with major reputations for making chefs super famous. I buy him a BlackBerry for his birthday, and we create a Facebook and Twitter account for him. I even pull a favor with a producer friend to get him on Good Morning America. I am totally committed to his burgeoning career, even if mine is on hold. We’ll take turns kicking ass.
As my days at People wind down, I take the train to D.C. every few days to look at apartments for us. It’s fall and Congress is back in session, which means that work is booming for Chef. I worry about adding any stress to his workdays, so I leave him alone at the restaurant and stroll the streets of Capitol Hill solo, checking out the one-bedrooms and bumping into portly politicians who smell like shaving cream and never say “Excuse me.” As I explore the neighborhoods, I try to mesh with my new stomping ground. I stop into coffee shops, read the Washington Post in the park, browse the stores in Dupont Circle, and do all the things that bring me simple pleasures in New York. I try to stay lighthearted with all the unfamiliar people in their unattractive outfits; I smile but no one smiles back. It’s not like we’re all so copacetic in New York City either, yet I totally get, and appreciate, those fuck-my-life dirty looks and broke-and-exhausted blank stares. In Washington, no matter what I do, or where I go, I can’t catch a vibe anywhere. But that’s okay. Nothing is going to bring me down now.
On my last day at the magazine, I attend a morning staff meeting with more than fifty people, where the editor-in-chief asks everyone to raise their venti skim lattes in honor of my scandalous stories, great sources, and something about an inner sparkle.… Truthfully, I have to tune out the words. Otherwise I’ll start to cry. People was a really nice place to work.
Luckily, the buzz of my BlackBerry distracts me as soon as the meeting shifts back to business. I look down to read that Chef has found us an apartment in Capitol Hill and rented it on the spot! “OMG, LYS. It has a writer’s den overlooking a cherry blossom tree, and a big, open kitchen … it’s soooo us!” he texts. That I trust his taste to sign a lease without me shows just how much I like his style. And it’s such a relief.
In our own version of “the trick,” Liz and I have decided not to drag out our farewells. She’s not the type to get theatrical in the office, and I’m almost embarrassed by my affection for her. So she’s purposely going home early today to make things easier on both of us. When I hear a soft knock on my door in the late afternoon, I know it’s time. “You take care, chérie,” she says kindly and gently, and as our glossy eyes lock, she exits my boxed-up empty office and shuts the door.
I stare at the blank wall, where I once hung a framed copy of a John Updike quote, “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” And I weep.
I don’t know why the experience of parting ways with my boss hits me harder than separating from any of my girlfriends or even my family, but I suspect a small part of me knows that in saying good-bye to Liz, I am leaving behind so much more.
Cheese Toast for Two Kids in Love
SERVES 2
I could become a James Beard Award—winning food writer or a Top Chef Master and I will always believe that the best food in the world is a simple thing called “cheese toast”—which is fancy for cheese melted on toast. Chef has made me cheese toast with Muenster, cheddar, Gruyère, Swiss, smoked mozzarella, Roquefort, and anything else we can find in the fridge. The more options in our cheese drawer, the more he layers. Usually he’ll use three slices with interesting flavors on a piece of thick, hearty bread (I like pumpernickel). But to be perfectly honest, a few slices of Kraft Singles on a frozen sesame bagel could make me swoon, too.
2 large slices of bread, approximately 1 inch thick
Dijon mustard (optional)
Unsalted butter (optional)
4 to 6 large slices of cheese
Salt and pepper
On your bread, spread mustard or butter if you so desire. Cover the bread with 2 or 3 slices of cheese. Put the bread on a baking sheet under the broiler or in a toaster oven for about 2 minutes, or until the cheese gets brown, bubbly, and almost burned. Then remove from the heat, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve.
Life-Altering Lemon Cake
SERVES 8 TO 10
My life changed forever that night at Fabiane’s in Williamsburg, and the lemon cake was the star of the meal, so it deserves a lot of attention. This version is from the original Silver Palate Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 1982), and it’s one of the best. I will never forget sharing dessert that night with Chef.
For the cake
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus additional for greasing the pan
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 tightly packed tablespoons grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
For the lemon icing
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tightly packed tablespoons grated lemon zest
½ cup fresh lemon juice (about 4 lemons)
Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.
Make the cake: In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment), cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.
In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the eg
g mixture, alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice.
Pour the batter into the prepared tube pan. Set the pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool for 10 minutes.
Prepare the icing: In a medium mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter thoroughly. Mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice. Set aside.
Remove the cake from the pan and spread the icing onto the cake while still warm.
Let cool before serving.
4.
Capitol Hell
I have rug burn.
In the first six weeks of living in our unbelievably cool apartment in D.C., which is on the second floor of an enchanted corner brownstone, I have dragged a dozen huge, heavy rugs—shags, sisals, and stripes—from every store imaginable, tethered them to the straggly-gold Jeep I bought us from Craigslist, and hauled them up to our living room, where I lay down the padding, unroll the rug, and mumble to myself, “Close, but not quite—damnit.” Then I pull it all up, roll it all together, go down the stairs, into the Jeep, and straight back to the store, where they already think I’m a lunatic with some version of architectural OCD.
The floor coverings aren’t the only thorn in my side. The entire apartment, as sun-drenched, bohemian, and beautiful as it is, is a bitch to furnish. The rooms are quirky, curvy, and easily cluttered, and the minimalist in me wants to murder the original contractor.
“Strong as an ox,” as my mother would say, I’ve single-handedly carried a few couches up and down the stairs, too, shuffling heavy objects all day long, until the Crate & Barrel Outlet escorts me out, or my left arm dislocates, or I stub my toe so bad that I tell an oversize credenza to kiss my ass. And then I head home to our love-pad-in-progress, with its misshaped rooms that reject all clean lines, and wait for Chef on whatever yellow-velvet or caramel-leather midcentury chair I’ve decided that I can actually live with that day. I’ve always needed my home to feel exactly right, but I’m being extra crazy with C Street. The furniture gives me some purpose and helps me temper a certain nervous energy that’s crept up from behind.
Apron Anxiety Page 6