Apron Anxiety

by Alyssa Shelasky

  A few days after our first date, I go home with my family to one of my aunts’ houses in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. Benjy leaves me a message wishing all the Shelaskys a happy holiday. I am moved by his thoughtfulness, which doesn’t preclude me from missing Chef, who still calls me almost every day, pleading to get back together every time I apprehensively pick up. Yet he obviously forgets to call or write on Thanksgiving. In fact, I wait for Chef to contact me all afternoon, giving my relatives only a fraction of my attention, while worrying if he’s okay, asleep, in jail, or just over me.

  That night at a bar outside Longmeadow, I meet up with Anzo, Kates, and Court who have all moved to their own nooks of New England and are home visiting family like me. The girls are planning a big fund-raiser in Boston to commemorate ten years since September 11, raise money for the Jean D. Rogér memorial fund, and celebrate her life with as many good people as possible. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. My circle of friends is still so transparently wounded by her death.

  There’s not much I can do to help since I live farthest from Boston geographically, and in another orbit all together from most of our married-with-children classmates, but I mention that maybe Chef will cook for the event, especially if it will help raise money. The girls get a little excited, but I emphasize that there’s no guarantee—there were never any guarantees with him, even when we were together.

  Of course, the next morning, he calls the second he wakes up, singing our favorite song into the receiver and suggesting that we watch the season’s premiere of one of our TV shows together via the telephone that night, as if we didn’t break off our engagement two months ago, as if he didn’t forget Thanksgiving, and as if he’s done absolutely nothing wrong. The call reflects so much about him—a two-part recipe of love and pain. I tell myself that this is why I need to keep dating decent, if less magnetic, men like Benjy.

  Actually, the hour I come back to town, Benjy is waiting to take me to some carpet-stained, second-floor Peruvian restaurant to divvy up skewers of succulent lamb and what I think might be veal hearts. (I tell him I don’t want to know.) We gulp down a couple pisco sours, exchange dating catastrophes, and then outside the restaurant, share a funky-tasting, but nonetheless enjoyable, first kiss. No electrical current runs through my veins, but it’s fun kissing in the street after eating exotic foods in a city where anything is possible.

  The next night, we trek to Flushing to traipse around a “Chinese food” strip mall, spilling over in food stations decorated in hung meat, serving fishy broths, duck buns, mystery dumplings, and various fatally spicy shit. All the forceful smells and sounds are considered paradise to many, but it’s an excursion I personally never need to make again. Still, with that being our third date, we go from soy sauce in Queens to sex in Brooklyn.

  Almost every other night, we start bouncing around affordable and eclectic spots that are usually a little too down and dirty for me, but absolute nirvana to Benjy. As far as he’s concerned, the dodgier, the better. Our bills are always under thirty bucks; I am always too scared to use the bathroom. Whenever I shiver over a location or a certain cut of meat, he jokingly calls me a diva or a snob. “So be it!” I say, inspecting my alley-cat surroundings. There is always a tinge of hostility between us at these often-delicious shitholes. He quips that I can’t call myself a food writer if I don’t even have a little interest in trying, for example, hot pockets of lamb placenta. Perhaps he has a point, but it only makes me think about Chef, who thought I was Ernest Hemingway just because I could describe the crunch of a celery stick.

  Benjy and I don’t see eye to eye on much, but he’s an interesting companion, and is opening my eyes to several secret gems. The ultimate treasure he introduces me to is a tiny, BYOB West African hideout called Abistro in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. The food is so incredible, and the place is such a find, that I overlook the four-dollar bottle of white wine he buys around the corner. When we don’t finish the bottle (the wine is so sugary that I can barely swallow it), we offer it to the kitchen staff, who peruse the label and pass.

  After a few weeks of dating, I’ve had enough fifty-cent banh mis for one lifetime, and am ready to have Benjy over for a cooked meal. He met my family briefly, when we all bumped into each other on the street, and my mom is definitely encouraging me to see what happens.

  “What an interesting guy,” she kept repeating.

  “Not too weird, Mom?”

  “Who wants a dullard?!”

  In light of her endorsement, I’m hoping that a full night at home will soften our edges as a new couple, and potentially transcend us into lovers, instead of eating buddies who sometimes screw. I’m still not drawn to him the way I have been with others, but perhaps our relationship is that of a slow boil. An intimate night in my lovely, though loud and marginally vibrating, apartment will be good for us.

  Frugal as he may be, Benjy has a voracious appetite and an extremely discerning palate. He typically eats slowly and abundantly, sometimes analyzing flavors for hours at a time, gushing over good, balanced bites and brooding over bad ones. I already know he’ll approach my meal intellectually and articulately. In other words, my rebound is bound to hate anything I make.

  A woman can always count on a roast chicken, as all home cooks know, so I thaw a frozen bird the night before Benjy comes over. I still haven’t found my signature method for roasting, and I ask Gael Greene via Twitter which recipe I should use. Who can speak better to food and romance? After all, she wrote my favorite food memoir and shagged Elvis. I am at her culinary command. She tweets back that I should look up Judy Rodgers’s Zuni Café recipe and I loyally follow—even though it’s a little more laborious than I’d like!

  Making dinner for Benjy in my sexy, industrial kitchen, I am calm and content. We’ve been dating for about six weeks now, it’s officially the dead of winter, and I’m happy to have someone to hibernate with. A slight terror hits when I realize I’ve screwed up the Zuni chicken before I even start—you’re supposed to salt and season it at least one day in advance. Oh well. I think I’ll be okay. I’ll let it sit, all nice and seasoned, in the fridge for a few hours. The good news is: no trussing! Trussing has always seemed superfluous to me, even though the majority of home cooks would fight me on that.

  As the cold morning turns into late afternoon, I take the chicken out of the fridge, pan roasting it exactly per the instructions. Then I roast it inside the oven, with heaps of carrots and potatoes all tucked in like naptime. As night falls, I take the entire dish out and let it rest. It’s time for the chicken and vegetables to suck up those juices while I wait for Benjy. Just when I’m about to light a few cucumber-scented candles, I stop myself. The apartment couldn’t possibly smell any better.

  Right on time, he knocks on my door, bundled up head to toe. I tell him to get comfortable, so he strips down to his long underwear (which doesn’t really work for my juices). I’m surprised he doesn’t bring any wine, but luckily I have an Argentinean Malbec, a red that was recommended by an Apron Anxiety reader, and cost a respectable twenty-six smackers.

  We both agree that the chicken comes out close to perfect. Benjy points out a few minor things he would have done differently—like trussing, for one, and slipping some lemons into the cavity, but I don’t really listen. By now, I’ve accepted that Benjy is a contrarian.

  After dinner, we climb into bed with a bowl of homemade strawberry mousse (luscious and sensual, even if we are not) and bicker, not for the first time, over which movie to watch. Everything I like is too “commoditized” for him, so we agree to watch something with subtitles and I fall asleep being held in my own onion-scented hands. I wonder what Gael Greene would say if she knew the warm Zuni Café chicken led to ice between the sheets.

  I’m not sure if I should release Benjy back to the world of Match.com, where many girls would want to marry him tomorrow, or keep working on it. I like how good he is to me—he’s dependable, reliable, and always available—which ma
kes me incredibly calm. There is a comforting dreariness to our relationship, in the way of a long walk through an afternoon fog, or a peasant soup on a raw day. So instead of making a rash decision that I might regret, I keep things going, but dial it back a bit. I tell him I need to focus on my writing and that we should only hang out once or twice a week for the rest of the winter. Really, I’m home alone, playing classical music and making bone-warming dishes like meat and plantain casseroles and caramel apple pies, which I delightfully savage alone in my long fleece nighties. I am more relaxed than I’ve been in a very long time. Between the ownership of my resplendent kitchen, the drama-free fling, and Beethoven’s Fifth, I am officially defused.

  As the duration of our casual relationship grows, even though the emotional connection really does not, I have to tell Chef—who’s in town for a new monthly TV segment—about Benjy. This brings me no secret satisfaction. We have a somber dinner over soggy nachos and salty margaritas at Pedro’s in DUMBO. During our hyperemotional meal, he tries to convince us both that his career doesn’t control him anymore, that everything has changed. Then he takes a disturbing call from his partners in which he nervously fibs by saying he’s on the train, heading home.

  “What?” he says, reacting to my dirty stare. “Some cook just quit and everyone is freaking out!”

  “Don’t you see?” I ask, shaking my head. “All you had to say was, ‘I’m with Alyssa, this is important. I will deal with the situation later but I cannot talk right now,’ and I’d start believing in us again.”

  He still doesn’t get it.

  By the time the partners call again, we agree (for the umpteenth time) that we are still atrocious as a couple, but forever unstoppable as friends. It’s probably unhealthy for me, and a little unfair to Benjy (who thinks Chef is sealed airtight, sous vide, in the past), but no matter how much he drives me crazy, we just can’t put each other away. I ask him to keep visiting, and he implores me to end it with Benjy because “I took you to the Greek Islands; he took you to fucking Flushing.” We erupt in laughter, as we always do. And share an incredible kiss, as we always have.

  “You know, there’s nothing I won’t do for you,” I say, as he gets into a cab.

  “Besides moving back to Washington,” he adds, closing the car door.

  NEW YEAR’S eve is a week away. I really just want to cook dinner for my parents, who have spent most of the winter redoing the Litchfield County barn and haven’t been around to taste any of my inspired dishes. Assuming everyone will have better plans, I also casually invite Beth and her husband, Tommy; Jill and her new boyfriend, Andrew; and my sister plus her date du jour to my parents’ loft. Benjy had mentioned that he was probably going upstate with some college friends that night, so I invite him, too, thinking he’d decline. But everyone immediately RSVPs “Yes!” I am a bit stunned, but quickly wrap my head around cooking for all ten of us. I’ll be hosting a smashing dinner party in six days and four hours.

  Creating a menu continues to be my great pleasure, but this one needs to be extra special. It’s about time I outdo myself. Surfing for ideas on one of my favorite cooking blogs, Food52.com, I come across a lamb meatball recipe featuring pomegranate seeds. The color of a single pomegranate aril, my favorite shade of red and the very reason I wanted a ruby ring, inspires the party’s entire concept. I commit to that dish as my main course and find a pasta—a fusilli with toasted pine nuts and feta from the Nigella Kitchen cookbook—to accompany it. I’ll serve it with a spinach and fig salad. Figs are not in season, but I’m sure some place will have sweet smelling ones.

  Benjy, who I’ve been a little frosty toward, kindly offers to be my sous-chef. I say sure. I’ll also put him in charge of making his signature fresh guacamole, which we’ll serve with homemade garlic pita chips. As always, I’ll cover the table with dramatic cheeses (definitely a thick slice of Mahon and the chestnut honey beseeched upon me at Fairway), and bushels of baguettes, green grapes, and smoked almonds. For dessert, I’m going to make a walnut—brown sugar torte from the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, and a three-layer red velvet cake from the Baked cookbook. I’ll whip up Bobby Flay’s vanilla bean crème fraîche, which will go well on both. My mother badgers me for something to contribute, so I tell her, if she must, I’d love a batch of dark chocolate clusters that I often long for, a holiday treat from my childhood. As our cocktail special, I’ll serve Nigella’s “Filthy Fizz,” made with Prosecco and Campari (presumably called that for the tainted pink color of the bubbly, or the subsequent dirty thoughts).

  The day before New Year’s Eve, I go to Eataly alone to buy ingredients. I obsess over having enough food, so I snag a few boxes of freshly made focaccia at four dollars a pop. My bill is close to three hundred dollars in the end. I remind Benjy to pick up his own guacamole ingredients, since it’s his recipe and I don’t know which produce are involved. Forever frugal, he seems miffed by this, but I really don’t care. With his help, I make the meatballs that night, trusting that like most meaty meals, they’ll taste even better the next day. Though I wisely decide to accessorize them with the pomegranate seeds just before we plate.

  The morning of New Year’s Eve, I wake on edge, kicking Benjy out early so I can bake my desserts in sweatpants and stress in private. My reputation as a hostess is at stake tonight, and even though I consider myself a good home cook by now, I’m not superhuman. Cooking for all those people at Dara’s proved my competence, as far as preparation and presentation are concerned, but this dinner makes me feel a little vulnerable for many other reasons, above and beyond the food. It’s going to be a roomful of people who know me well; who know when I’m winning and when I’m wilting. They’re going to see how hard I’m trying to be happy, but that, of course, I’m still healing. It’s tricky to hide behind food, when the people you’re serving know to look past the dinner plate.

  I change out of my jeans and dirty T-shirt into a knee-length, indigo slip dress that I bought in Venice Beach over the summer, and head over to my parents’. The doorbell there rings and keeps ringing. It’s a delight to see everyone, but the atmosphere quickly becomes a little frantic. My family and friends are loud and hilarious—and it’s hard to focus on completing the meal while keeping up with their charismatic stories. Plus my phone keeps vibrating on the granite counter, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that it’s Chef’s number. I am screening him against all my basic instincts. The meatballs are ready, and the pasta is cooking, and even though Benjy is helping me in the kitchen, I feel torn between giving my attention to him and to my friends, the phone, and the food. “Go catch up with everyone,” he says sweetly. “I got this.”

  So I step away from the kitchen, take a deep, meditative breath, grab a drink, and try to lighten up. Even though I feel like an attractive-enough hostess, Beth, who doesn’t have an undermining bone in her body, takes one sip of her Filthy Fizz and whispers to me that she misses the inner glow I had with Chef. Her truthfulness throws me off. We’ve been extremely close for fifteen years and she doesn’t just throw words around.

  “Beth,” I say sharply, sipping my cocktail and looking her straight in the eye. “You say that because you spent time with us in the beginning, but trust me, Chef didn’t make me glow in the end. He made me cry.”

  Then I remind myself to be a cool and composed hostess like Jennifer Rubell or Gwyneth Paltrow and I confess to her that I’m a little stressed, hence my oversensitivity, that I love her, and we’ll talk about everything later.

  I excuse myself to the stove, and to Benjy. He’s very helpful by nature, a wonderful quality, but tonight I also sense his timidness around all the new people, and I find him seeking extra refuge by the burners. My mom takes my place to keep him company, as I refill everyone’s drinks. She really likes him—he’s passionate and peculiar, the kind of man she’d lock down for herself (or so she says) if she had to do it all over again. She’s even been handing down some antiques from the barn for his hipster-meets-hermit tenement apartment. But re
ally she likes how he’s helped me “get over the hump” of another hellish breakup and find my balance back in New York even in his own weird way.

  I ask everyone to take their seats at the festive table, which is in the middle of the open loft and looks lush with milk bottles filled with wild flowers, baskets of focaccia bread, piles of toile cloth napkins, white unscented candles, and long, willowy champagne flutes. As Benjy and I plate everyone’s dinner, Tommy, Beth’s infinitely likable husband of ten years, cracks a joke that has everyone keeled over in laughter. Benjy sprinkles the pomegranate seeds exactly so and whispers into my ear, “I’m sorry I’m not a funnier guy.” I put my hands through his great head of hair and give him a long kiss on the lips. “You’re perfect just the way you are.” Someone will be so lucky to have him.

  Unlike Dara’s dinner party, which was family-style, tonight, Benjy and I do the plating behind the scenes. Thank God, the tones and textures of the collective dishes work as well together in real life as they did in my head. It’s a fetching plate of food! Tiny dots of pomegranate kiss the dark and handsome lamb; curlicue fusilli is studded with flecks of pine nuts and chunky white feta; the quietly confident salad tames its counterparts’ pulsating sass.

  I text a close-up picture of a plate and send it to Shellz, who is skiing in Aspen; to Paisley, who has taken to a tree house; to Liz from People, who’s hopefully not at the news desk; and to Anzo, Kates, and Court, who I know have struggled with the holidays since Jean’s death. I also text Dara, who’s getting engaged in a yurt; the C Street neighbors shooting Patron and praising Jesus for childcare; and all the other supportive women I wish I could spoil and surprise tonight.