Apron Anxiety

by Alyssa Shelasky

  “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!”

  Then I look around the kitchen for the nutmeg, which is up next. Nowhere to be found, despite the fact that I paid nine dollars for it an hour ago. I grab some cinnamon instead. That’s like nutmeg’s little sister, isn’t it? My little dash turns into a voluptuous dollop and suddenly my white, creamy sauce turns into Cinnamon City. There’s nothing I can do. It’s time to boil the water and bathe the macaroni.

  So far, no fires, no tears, and no missing fingers. In the seven minutes before the pasta is cooked, I try to tidy up, remembering a tip Chef told me that the first thing you learn in culinary school is to “clean as you go.” So banal, yet so brilliant. I don’t know why, but it reminds me of the legendary L.A. story where a young actor asked Bette Davis for advice on being successful in Hollywood. She took a long drag of a good cig and said, “Take Fountain.” (It’s a street with less traffic!)

  The amount of mess and dirty dishes for such a low-key meal is absolutely ludicrous. I don’t make much money these days, and I don’t even have health insurance, but I pay Paula, our weekly housekeeper, without so much as a wince. Needless to say, I have no clue where she keeps things. Nothing resembling a sponge is anywhere near the sink, which can’t even hold half the damn dishes, and for a million bucks, I couldn’t tell you if we own a mop. What a crock of shit. Not only am I learning to cook, but now I have to learn to clean, too? I didn’t sign up for this. I’d have more fun shaving my head than cleaning my house. Now cheese and crumbs and scraps are flung everywhere and I start panicking about getting mice. I definitely take after the Temkin women, who are more afraid of mice than Bin Laden or Bernie Madoff.

  I drain the macaroni, transfer the slippery suckers into the cheese sauce, and stir. I then pour the pasta mixture into two casserole dishes, one large and one small, assuming the small one can be my tester batch. Thick, beige liquid splatters everywhere, including on my eyelashes. All I can do is throw everything in the oven and pray.

  The next thirty minutes is a cyclone of cleaning, scrubbing, texting Chef, and stalking the stove. I am hyper and tipsy, replaying the last hour of my life in the apron, thinking how it was nothing to be afraid of, and maybe it was even a little fun. It’s like the feeling you get after a big drop on a dreaded roller coaster, when you scream to your friends, “Let’s do it again!”

  And then, there’s a whiff of smoke.

  The casseroles are ready, but they’ve spilled over, leaving a creamy puddle on the bottom of the stove, with a small fire ablaze. I speed-dial Chef. He tells me to take out the mac ’n’ cheese and quickly put the fire out with salt. Because he doesn’t realize that I’m half in the bag, he neglects to remind me to use a pot holder. I hurriedly grab the overflowing Le Creuset with my bare left hand and OUCH. I let go fast, but I burned myself bad. I scream and swear and curse Martha Stewart to hell. My hand is throbbing, but I somehow find a mitt, save the food, and pour our most expensive sea salt all over the bottom of the oven. Chef can clean it.

  As I run my blistering hand under cold water, I can’t help but think: My first kitchen wound. Cool.

  Wrapped in an ice-cold washcloth, my hand will be okay but my stomach is growling with hunger. I let the mac ’n’ cheese cool for five minutes, excited to dive in and taste my hard work. Despite the spillage, or maybe even because of it, the presentation looks rustic and hearty. I’m a little shocked by its unassuming beauty, and when the time is right, I take a spoon to the sampler dish with delight. The top is crunchy, the inside is gooey, and all modesty aside, it tastes really damn good. My first meal ever is accidentally amazing.

  But there’s no time to revel in my macaroni ’n’ glee. It’s 5:00 p.m. I leave the casseroles on the stove top and cover them with foil. Maybe they’ll magically stay hot—I’m not sure how that works. I top off my vino and bring on the Bobby Flay. His turkey meatloaf recipe looks easy and impressive. I have premonitions of something smoky and savory, thinking countrysides and Clint Eastwood. This would not be cafeteria meatloaf.

  I gather some multicolored peppers and chop away with my knife skills, which are certainly no better than my math and cleaning skills, but I try my best to disco dance with the cutting board. I add zucchini, not sure if I should peel it, so I don’t. And in the end, my vegetables are chunky and vibrant, like cocktail rings and Marimekko bags. As far as the meat mixture, it seems pretty hard to screw up. I debate running the disturbingly pink and raw ground turkey under water, because I’m not sure which foods you rinse before cooking or not, but I have the wherewithal not to. Combining the off-putting meat with the awkward vegetables makes me a little queasy. Either I’m a closet vegetarian or I’ve seen too much Dexter, but I decide that I don’t like this dish. I throw the ominous meatloaf in the oven and shut the door revulsed.

  In the ninety minutes the meatloaf has to cook, I set the dinner table with some Mason jar lanterns, a few soft votives, and three stray daisies inside a petite crystal vase. Despite my aversion to cooking, I’ve always collected cool, eclectic dishware (which really elevated all those fluffernutters), and I choose two mismatched plates I found in some flea market in Park Slope. I toss all my utensils into a rustic, paint-splatter
ed, wooden box—something I remember the artsy visual team doing at ABC Carpet & Home—and leave it unedited in the center of the table. I roll up two frayed dishtowels to use as napkins and scatter around short, pearl-inlaid tumblers—one for red wine, one for sparkling water. I dim the lights, just enough.

  The meatloaf has been in the oven for almost two hours, yet it’s still hot pink and wet, and looks too unappetizing to set on the table. I loathe this loaf. So I remove it from the oven, let it cool for ten minutes, bury it alive with aluminum foil, and stick it in the back of the freezer, all slimy and frosted-lipstick-like. It is now 9:00 p.m.

  Chef calls. “The anticipation is killing me! I’m coming home early! How’s my little apprentice?” I try to sound poised, but as I’ve just decided not to serve the meatloaf, all I have left is a wussy salad and some mainstream macaroni ’n’ cheese. “I’m good, love,” I say apprehensively. “Don’t get too excited for dinner, okay? Low expectations. Promise?”

  My guy will be home soon and I look like something in between a Chassid and a hooker. I warm up the macaroni ’n’ cheese, throw my arugula in a Scandinavian salad bowl, and quickly make my grandmother’s foolproof dressing. I turn on some Natalie Merchant and dunk myself in the bath. I hold a piping hot towel over my tired skin and stinging eyes, and take a deep breath.

  Out of the tub, I put on a long, off-the-shoulder T-shirt and lacey black underpinnings. I lotion my legs with Chocolate Truffle Soufflé Body Cream, which reminds me of something. I forgot to bake dessert.

  Martha’s Mac ’n’ Cheese

  SERVES 12