Apron Anxiety

by Alyssa Shelasky

  These days, it seems he spends as much time behind the grill as he does talking me off the ledge. Miraculously, he never loses his patience. The worst he’ll say is that my attitude is “unbecoming,” which for some reason always cracks me up and snaps me right out of my mood. Such a rigid word from such a rugged guy.

  We do still get out of town now and then. We travel to Miami for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, a promlike weekend for the country’s most famous foodie insiders. I am so excited that I buy us shopping bags of clothes, sunglasses, and swimsuits. (If nothing else, I’m definitely Chef’s stylist.) It’s an intense and intimidating crowd, with cliquey food writers and chefs that he’s only observed from afar. We share most of it with our eyes wide open, hand in hand.

  At the end of the long weekend, it is announced that Chef has won a big cooking award and I scream at the top of my lungs! My boyfriend ate the bear. He makes a short speech, thanking the Boys, his partners, and publicists, but he doesn’t mention me. I try to let it roll off my shoulders, but not before mentioning it to him.

  “Hey, you forgot to thank me!”

  “It’s not always about you, Alyssa, jeez. Are you really doing this right now?”

  He’s never been that sharp with me before, and I assure him that the issue is dropped.

  Instead of sulking, I focus on celebrating. After all, I may not know how to patty a burger but I do know how to party. Not long after we arrive at the rooftop gathering in his honor, however, I find myself slouching next to Chef, uncomfortable in my own skin, as everyone bonds over blends of meat, Michelin stars, and the technicalities of deep-fried bubble gum. “That actually sounds yummy,” I say, trying to participate. “Ew, babe, really?” shuns Chef, making me feel gauche.

  As the alcohol flows, a famously unfiltered female chef says in front of all the jerks who are already pushing me aside for a piece of my guy, “So you’re the People magazine reporter who stalked him!” Thank God I have a sense a humor, but it was really tested at that moment. I spend the rest of the night non-conversational, afraid to say the wrong thing, and freaked out by the whole environment, including Chef, who’s having a grand time.

  A few weeks after the festival, one of Chef’s partners plants a seed that it’s unprofessional to bring one’s girlfriend everywhere. He shrugs it off, but in the days to come, there’s a shift imperceptible to anyone but me. Sometimes he still includes me … other times I feel forgotten about. Deep down, I think I let him down at the food festival because I couldn’t hold my own. That weekend turned me into a real drag. No one from my old life would believe it.

  He’s traveling almost weekly now—from Anaheim to Amsterdam and everywhere in between. It’s mental motion sickness, especially with his disorganized ways—uncharged cell phone, expired driver’s license, missing house keys, disappearing wallet, unflossed teeth, and untied Vans. I try to see the charm in it all, as I always have in the past (who wants an uptight guy?), but for the trips where I’m excluded, or worse, the ones he forgets to tell me about, my tolerance is diminishing. “I am not some 1950s housewife, whose only purpose is to find the fucking passport,” I say, dumping his entire dresser on the ground.

  I use that same argument to explain why our fridge is always empty, save deli meat and beer, and why, on the counter, there’s only a sad butcher block with a few slices of bread, a box of stale granola, and two avocados encircled by fruit flies. Despite a full year of dating a chef, I remain sanctimoniously kitchen-phobic. He comes home exhausted and famished, and I, having done less than nothing all day, have no excuse for our sandwich-only fare. For my own meals during the day, I eat peanut butter on a spoon, cheese and crackers, green olives, rocky road ice cream, or whatever is around. Sometimes I just drink. I don’t tell my mom how disenchanted by D.C. I am, but when she says “Why don’t you give cooking or baking a shot, hon? It’s always been so therapeutic for me,” I know she’s picked up on my mounting sense of instability. I tell her she sounds crazy, while inhaling dozens of dried apricots for dinner.

  I wish I could say that I refrain from my domestic duties out of some real sense of feminism or gender equality, and maybe subconsciously I do. But more likely, I’m just depressed. I can barely buy milk without a meltdown. Chef goes easy on me as far as my culinary inadequacies—he’s much more worried about my perpetual tears than my prep table. We do have a good laugh when I buy him cheeseburger-flavored Pringles, though, thinking it’s some heroic act. “Never buy cheeseburger-flavored anything for someone who makes cheeseburgers allll daaay looong!” he sings, wrestling me to the ground with one of his famous tickle attacks.

  He rarely cooks for us at all anymore. There’s no time for such luxuries. In opening a second restaurant, his hours get even worse. He comes home so physically drained that all he wants is a long kiss, a bag of chips, some juice, and for me not to be upset about anything. It kills me to see him so weak and bleary-eyed. The guy has more joie de vivre in his pinky finger than most people in their entire life span, and here he is struggling to stick a straw in a Capri Sun.

  “What would you say if I gave you a list of five things I want my wife to cook for me one day?” he says in the middle of the night, over some soggy cereal.

  “Um, was that a proposal?” I say, jokingly, deflecting the issue.

  “One day, babe, one day.” He smiles, mischievously.

  “Remember, rubies, not diamonds,” I remind him, reiterating my preference for my birthstone, rather than the typical rock.

  “Okay, but you remember: roast chicken, not Cheerios!”

  WE DON’T have too many Sundays together after he starts working at his second place. And he comes home so late now, after closing the restaurant and getting through his paperwork at the office, that I can barely stay awake for snuggle and TV time.

  Nor can he accompany me to anything at all. I visit New York about once a month, and unless it’s tied to a TV appearance, Chef doesn’t come along. So, I go to most family birthdays and friends’ weddings alone, leaving some worried that I’m robbing myself of a normal life. You can’t truly respect the grind of the restaurant business until you’ve lived with it. That said, it is rough. If I had my New York life, that would be another story. It would be so much fun finishing up our grueling days around the same ungodly hour, collapsing on top of each other with hot pizza and cold beer, too tired to talk, though not too tired to sleep without sex. Now, I just stare out a window and wait all day.

  While helping out with Chef’s PR is the only activity that makes me feel ever so slightly relevant, I am also getting the drift that my input is becoming a serious annoyance to everyone involved, even him. By now, he has a well-oiled machine on payroll; they know what they’re doing and don’t need my input.

  “You don’t have to include me in everything that’s going on with the media anymore, if you don’t want to,” I say to Chef, a few days before our one-year anniversary. He’s just come home from work at 4:00 a.m. and I’ve forced myself out of bed to fix him a roast beef sandwich.

  “Okay, baby, perfect …” he says, not looking up from his BlackBerry.

  Okay, baby, perfect hurts.

  It triggers a catastrophic sense of rejection.

  Hello, cruel nothingness.

  So I start drinking at noon and logging in and out of his e-mail to read the latest slutty note from some sex-deprived housewife, or the details of his travel itineraries to places I’ve always wanted to visit yet haven’t been invited to. I eat very little, can’t sleep at all, and have developed adult acne. I show up at the restaurant tipsy and in tears, unraveling every time one of his partners gives me a disapproving look or a customer pushes me aside for a photo with Chef.

  I think about shaking things up the way I would in the old days … partying hard, starting an affair, disappearing for a few days, but I love Chef too much to risk it. And I’m older now. I also wouldn’t even know how to bum a light in this town.

  One afternoon I’m feeling so unsteady and insecu
re about all his female fans, and the fact that he’s usually perceived as single in the press, that I drink screwdrivers like it’s my job and send anonymous sightings of us “looking very much in love” into the Washington Post from a fake e-mail account. He’s mine, bitches. Somehow my real name appears along with the alias, and by the time the reporter e-mails back, “Wait, aren’t you the girlfriend you speak of?” I just want to curl up and die.

  I am not myself, not even a knockoff of myself, which is a problem for so many reasons, not the least of which is that my boyfriend fell in love with a lit-from-within writer, with bluebirds on her shoulders, perfectly content with a few strands of licorice, a handful of real friends, and a library book about Mötley Crüe. We need to find her before he bolts or I have a nervous breakdown.

  Chef panics at the sight of me so sad, frustrated, and lonely, promising that his hours will calm down soon. He tempers me by hinting at the ruby, but we both know an engagement ring can’t give me the closeness I require.

  I’m just desperate to feel part of something. But who am I to make a peep? I am a nobody now.

  Late-Night Turkey BLTs

  SERVES 4

  It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that my ideal recipe has only a few basic ingredients. That said, the BLT was my national treasure in the early days of me and Washington, when I was just navigating the culinary waters. Sandwiches like this got me through a lot of long nights, good and bad. I’m not a big bacon eater (Jewish guilt!), so I use turkey bacon, but even Chef agrees that the substitution yields something just as delicious, and healthier, too. It’s easy to wing this kind of thing, but this precise recipe was adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, My Father’s Daughter.

  8 slices turkey bacon (or real bacon)

  8 slices potato bread or whole-wheat bread

  ½ cup mayonnaise or mustard

  Coarse salt

  Fresh ground black pepper

  Handful of fresh basil

  2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  2 large beefsteak tomatoes cut into 8 medium slices

  Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crispy on both sides. Drain on a paper towel and cut each slice in half. Meanwhile, toast the bread.

  Spread one side of each slice of bread with mayonnaise or mustard. Sprinkle each slice with a tiny pinch of salt and a dash of black pepper.

  Evenly distribute the basil on 4 slices of bread already covered with a condiment, drizzle each with ½ tablespoon of olive oil, then sprinkle with a bit more salt and pepper.

  Lay 2 tomato slices on top of each heap of basil, so they each cover over half the surface.

  Layer 4 pieces of turkey bacon on each sandwich. Top each sandwich with one of the remaining slices of bread, cut in half, and serve.

  Sweet Potato Chips

  SERVES 2

  When I first moved to D.C., I confessed to one of my oldest New York pals, and consummate foodie, Jill Sites, that I had served Chef and myself sandwiches with potato chips for three months straight. “It’s not pretty,” I wrote in an e-mail. In turn, she sent me a recipe. “These are healthy enough that you can relax a little; I know you don’t cook, but come on, live a little, be brave!” I posted the recipe on my fridge and didn’t look at it for a long time.

  1 large sweet potato, unpeeled

  Grapeseed oil (or any other neutral-tasting oil, such as peanut, soy, or vegetable)

  Sea salt and black pepper

  2 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme, minced

  7 sprigs fresh rosemary, minced

  Using a mandoline or very sharp knife, slice the sweet potato very thin, about ⅓ to ¼ inch thick. Place the sliced potatoes in a large bowl of water and let sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the water becomes very cloudy. Remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon and dry them completely using a tea towel or paper towels.

  Heat enough oil to go about two-thirds of the way up a medium heavy-bottomed pot (or Dutch oven) over medium-high heat. The oil is hot enough when you put the end of a wooden spoon in the oil and it bubbles immediately.

  Place the potato slices in the oil, being careful not to crowd the pot. Fry approximately 3 to 6 minutes (the time depends on the thickness of the chips and the heat of the oil). Turn them occasionally so they brown evenly. They will begin to float and turn slightly golden when they’re done. Remove the batch of potatoes with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towels, and continue with the next batch.

  When all the potatoes are fried, make sure the oil is still on medium-high heat and fry them again for 2 more minutes, or until they are perfectly crispy. Remove the potatoes from the oil, drain again on paper towels, and season the hell out of them with the salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary.

  Serve hot or cold.

  5.

  Will Cook for Love

  Don’t fuck it up, Shelasky,” my Emmy Award—winning friend whispers as we walk to his shiny SUV after dinner at a Mexican restaurant, just off Hollywood Boulevard. “Don’t fuck it up.”

  He’s referring to my love life. We’re in Los Angeles because Chef has a cooking series in Santa Monica to shoot and he knows I need to get away. The trip couldn’t have come at a better time. California has always been a special place for me—it’s my long, deep breath, my escape from reality. (If New York weren’t my environmental soul mate, and we weren’t so stuck in D.C., I’d move us out west in a second.) Despite a jam-packed itinerary, Chef has taken the night off to finally meet my old, naughty neighbors, who are still fabulous, but now sober and thriving. Shelley, of course, comes along, and a few other New York transplants, including one who has made it big on a hit TV show and recently won several awards. Over Shirley Temples and corn tortillas, we all have a lot to celebrate, including my one-year anniversary with Chef.

  I never want the night to end. To most couples, dinner with friends is known as Tuesday. To those in a “relationchef,” as I call our situation, it is known as a blessing. Tonight, Chef is the guy I first met in Williamsburg—sweet, pure, relaxed, and warm. He’s not watching the clock or being whisked away. I too am my old spirited self—confident and alive. Shelley and I tell the most dramatic rendition of our Nick Nolte story. Chef spits out an empanada in a fit of laughter, and our other friend falls off his chair. When a young kid comes to the table and nervously asks for a photo, Chef affably agrees, pushing back his seat to stand up, like a good sport. The confused fan says, “Sorry, mister, I wanted one with him,” pointing to our actor friend. The gang erupts into more laughter.

  The next morning Chef and I hike Runyon Canyon, where I drag his skinny ass all the way up to the sky and back. The crisp air and rigorous exercise feels amazing and we make false promises the whole way down about finding hiking trails back home. “Let’s do this every first Sunday of the month,” I say. “For sure,” he pants.

  Then we drive down the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, where we share a delicious avocado and sprout sandwich from the town market, park at the beach, sunbathe topless, and feel a universe away from C Street.

  “How do we keep you as happy as you are right now?” he says, standing in the departures line at the airport, his tanned, sandy arms wrapped tightly around my waist. “I’ve missed you, Lys.”

  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” solil
oquy, 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.)