Apron Anxiety
Page 21
Crust
1⅓ cups all-purpose flour, sifted, plus more for working the dough
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg
Ice water
1 teaspoon olive oil
Onion and cumin filling
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
6 medium (2 pounds) yellow onions, thinly sliced
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
3 large eggs
¾ cup light cream
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1½ cups (5 ounces) freshly grated Comté (Gruyère is a good substitute)
For the crust: If working with a food processor: Combine the flour, salt, and butter and process on low for about 10 seconds, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and mix again for a few seconds, until the dough forms a ball. If the dough is a little dry, add ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time, and process in short pulses until the dough just comes together.
If working by hand: Sift the flour into a medium mixing bowl. Add the salt and butter to the flour and rub the mixture with the tips of your fingers or a wire pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat the egg lightly in a small bowl. Form a well in the center of the flour mixture, add the egg, and blend it in gently with a fork. When most of the egg is incorporated, knead gently until the dough comes together. If it is a little dry, add ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the dough forms a ball. Avoid overworking the dough.
Turn out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and gather into a slightly flattened ball without kneading. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes and up to a day (or freeze up to one month).
Sprinkle flour lightly on a clean work surface and on a rolling pin, then place the dough on the surface. Roll the pin over the dough two or three times with moderate pressure. Rotate the dough clockwise by a quarter of a turn, and roll the pin over it two or three times. Repeat these steps until you get a circle large enough to line a 10-inch ceramic quiche or pie pan, sprinkling the work surface and the rolling pin with a little more flour if the dough begins to stick.
Refrigerate the dough in its disk-like shape, wrapped in plastic wrap, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, grease the quiche or pie pan with the oil and preheat the oven to 350°F. When the dough is chilled, transfer it to the pan, prick all over with a fork, and press on the sides with your fingers so the dough will adhere to the pan. Bake for 7 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven (leaving the heat on) and set aside.
For the filling: Once your crust is ready, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon salt, and stir. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the onions are soft and translucent.
Remove the lid, raise the heat to medium high, and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until most of the liquid has evaporated. (This step can be done 1 day in advance if cooled, covered, and stored in the fridge.) Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and cream. Season with the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt, the pepper, and the cumin seeds. Fold in the cheese and cooked onions, and pour the mixture into the crust.
Bake for 35 minutes, or until the top is golden and the center is still slightly jiggly. Turn off the heat and leave the quiche in the closed oven for 10 minutes, or until the filling is set. Serve warm.
Springtime Tart
SERVES 8
Just like the Gentleman Caller’s Onion and Cumin Quiche, this recipe, from the same Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, is deceptively easy and versatile. I started making this tart in the early months of spring, so I prepared it with gorgeous strawberries, but the strawberries can be replaced with raspberries in the summer, figs in the fall, or even pineapple in the winter. The crust, of course, is perfect year-round. Tarts make great breakfasts, light lunches, or pretty desserts; they’re in the precious category that I like to call “the interchangeable calorie.”
Crust
⅓ cup sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon sea salt
7 tablespoons (3½ ounces) chilled unsalted butter, diced, plus a pat to grease the pan
1 to 2 tablespoons cold milk
Filling
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup milk
4 cups fresh strawberries (about 2 pints)
For the crust: Grease a 10-inch tart pan with butter.
If working with a food processor: Combine the sugar, flour, and salt in the processor. Add the butter and process in short pulses, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and process again, in short pulses, until the milk is absorbed.
If working by hand: In a medium mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, and salt. Add the butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with the tips of your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add a tablespoon of milk and blend it in, handling the dough as lightly as you can.
The dough should still be crumbly, but it should clump if you gently squeeze a handful. If it doesn’t, add a little more milk, teaspoon by teaspoon, and blend again, still working lightly, until it reaches the desired consistency.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tart pan and use the back of a tablespoon to spread it evenly over the bottom. Using your fingers and the heels of your hands, press down on the dough to form a thin layer, covering the surface of the pan and creating a rim all around. Don’t worry if the dough feels a little dry—this is normal. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Start the filling and then bake the pastry for 12 to 14 minutes, until golden, keeping an eye on it. Remove from the oven and let cool.
For the filling: In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, vanilla, and sugar. Whisk in the cornstarch and set aside.
In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over medium heat. As soon as the milk simmers, pour it into the egg mixture, whisk vigorously until blended, and pour the mixture back into the saucepan. Return the saucepan to low heat, and whisk for 30 seconds as it thickens. Spoon the milk mixture into the prepared pastry, level the surface with a spoon, and let cool completely on the counter, about 1 hour.
Rinse the strawberries, pat them dry, and hull them. Cut the strawberries lengthwise in half. Arrange the fruit on the tart in a circular pattern, starting from the center. Serve immediately, or cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerater. Bring to room temperature before serving.
13.
A Harmless Weekend in Washington
Laura, one of my dear neighbors on C Street, is throwing a birthday bash for her one-year-old son, Baxter. The little guy was born a few months early and has had a rough year.
I miss my old neighbors, especially the kids, and I’d like to be there to celebrate the B-Man’s excellent progress. The last time they all saw me, a little over eight months ago, I was a bedraggled, bony mess, with mascara dripping down to my clavicles and a dozen garbage bags filled with cooling racks, photo albums, and dirty jeans. I vividly remember the neighborhood kids’ sad faces as I packed up the Jeep, kissed them good-bye, and explained that Miss Alyssa was moving away, that there would be no more milk and cookies on our stoop, and to please take care of Mister Chef if they see him around.
These are much sunnier days.
Chef encourages me to make the trip down to see the big, groovy loft he rented shortly after we broke up. He also keeps promising me that he now has more time to be a functional human and wants me to see the positive changes he’s made to his work hours and overall well-being. Same old, but it’s nice to know that we’re both happy and centered in our individual lives. While my career is keeping me exh
ilaratingly busy, his seems to be slowing down just enough for him to finally take inventory of all the changes he’s experienced and all the choices he’s made, both good and bad. He’s spending a great deal of time mentoring inner-city kids and cooking with terminally ill children. His charity work has become more important to him than any partners or publicists. It’s pure, and sincere, and I’m proud of him.
Our affection for each other has hardly diminished; we’ve just found a way to live with the fact that we might always be crazy in love, but unable to be happy together. Given this clear message from me, I know he’s consoled himself (so to speak) with a few flings, and he’s aware of my dalliances, too. It’s neither of our favorite topics, but because we talk a few times a day, about everything from my delicious discoveries to the things we wish we could do over from our past, it’s impossible to hold anything back.
I’m not sure how much time I’ll want to spend there, so I purchase a one-way ride on the bus, warning my family and friends that if they have an opinion, they better keep it to themselves. Anyway, we’re not getting back together. If I saw that in the past few months Chef had magically turned into the kind of guy who made me certain that we could handle real life, and that we’d always put each other first without a strand of doubt or insecurity, maybe I’d come to town with a more romantic point of view.
But after last night, no. On the phone, I reminded him about the upcoming fund-raiser in Boston in honor of Jean on the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, which he originally said he’d “most likely” attend to cook at, be supportive of, or whatever worked best for me and my friends from home. It’s in a few weeks, but now he’s wiggling out of it, mentioning something about being double-booked … a prior work commitment that he can’t get out of now. It’s an honest mistake (as it always is), but it’s nearly impossible to manage my disappointment when his actions affect the people who matter the most to me.
“I’ll never be that guy who’s always right there next to you, Lys,” he said at the end of the call. “You have to accept it already.”
“Yup,” I say, in that stale tone.
“Will you still come see me tomorrow?”
“Yup,” I say, hanging up, coldly.
I wake up willing to let go of the Boston situation, because he really did seem in a bind and he was forthcoming about it. And shame on me for thinking he’d come through in the first place. I fill a duffel bag with T-shirts and jeans and clean out my junk drawer, grabbing swag for the kids—a faux-gold necklace I got at Fashion Week that reads “FABULOUS,” and a rainbow lollipop shaped like Lady Liberty. I pack up my laptop and Gabrielle Hamilton’s newly published memoir and rush out the door. Halfway down the hallway, running impossibly late, I turn around and grab the nude minidress from my closet. No one appreciates my legs more than Chef.
My dad rides the F train with me to the bus stop at Penn Station. He says he’s heading in that direction anyway, but I know that’s not really the case. While I’ve downplayed the trip to everyone including myself, he wants to send me off on behalf of my family with love and support. He hands me an envelope as I rush off and warmly says, “Buy Chef a coffee on me.” My parents, who have the gift of seeing the good in everyone, accepted him for who he is long ago.
I wait until I’m on the bus before I open the envelope. Inside, I find a twenty-dollar bill and a little piece of paper with a quote in my mother’s messy handwriting that reads: “Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it … Delicious ambiguity.” She loves this Gilda Radner quote. It helps me relax. Delicious ambiguity, indeed. I fold up the note and put it in my wallet.
When I get to D.C., I find out that Baxter’s birthday party has been cancelled. He’s come down with a bad cold and can’t be around people. Because I had reserved the whole day to spend with C Street, I still walk there from the bus stop. My other neighbors want to catch up, with or without the cake and clowns.
As my feet touch the Capitol Hill sidewalk, I feel overwhelmed being back. This city and the streets leading up to our old house take me through a journey of extreme emotions: our house-hunting and anticipation of moving in together, the isolation I felt during the early days, the deliverance of marching toward Eastern Market to make my first home-cooked meals, and the long walks looking for answers when our emotional warfare made it too hard to think straight. Washington is where I thought we’d have it all, but then decided it couldn’t be. Was I wrong about both?
When I turn the corner and see our pretty brownstone, a lump grows in my throat. I am transported back to the day I pulled up, almost three years ago, with butterflies in my stomach and joy in my eyes, barely turning off the car before Chef swooped me off my feet and carried me through the front door. I ran around the house, with my hands flung in the air and my legs practically off the ground, screaming like a maniac, “This is ours?! This is ours?!” The scene plays in my head like an old projected movie—gritty, old-fashioned, full of depth. So many happy memories rush to my mind as my chest pounds just thinking of Chef.
But then I see that new tenants have cleared out our garden, which makes me feel suddenly queasy. All the flourishing herbs I once helplessly turned to when cooking scared me so much; the brotherhood of bold yellow and deep orange tomato plants, which we’d water early in the morning and late at night with such vigilance; and the red and green peppers, so crunchy and easy to care for. Here was a testimony to all of Chef’s hard work and industriousness and all of my daily devotion, just ripped up, washed away, and replaced with shitty dirt, dead leaves, and cigarette butts.
Our electric green bike is gone, and I remember that Chef told me someone stole it from our front lawn after I moved out. He was so sad that day. A Subaru hatchback with an Obama bobblehead on the dashboard has replaced our beautiful, bird-crapped, and busted-up Jeep that was cluttered with discarded sunglasses, broken flip-flops, emergency picnic blankets, and grocery bags of barbecue potato chips and semisweet chocolate chips. (The poor car even croaked a few weeks back.)
No matter how hard I look, the divine spark no longer exists on the corner of the nation’s capital, where two kids in love once shared all their dinners and all their thoughts, who slept in the same interwoven position every night and woke up to bad coffee and rushed kisses every morning. I’m frozen as I stare at the house. Our home was really all we had. As if the soul of the brownstone could read my lips, I quietly whisper, “I’m so sorry I left you.” Why am I doing this to myself?
Before I get too overwrought with emotion, Maeve and Ronan see me from their big bay window. I can hear them from across the street: “Miss Alyssa is here! Miss Alyssa is here!” So I pull myself together and walk ahead. The moment Joe and Allison open the door, the kids are cheering, and then soon they’re crawling up and down me, clinging to my every limb. Allison apologizes, but I tell her it’s exactly what I need. First things first, they want to know what I’ve brought them. So I pull out the “fabulous” necklace and put it on Maeve, who’s now four. “What does ‘fabulous’ mean?” she asks Allison. “It means ‘Miss Alyssa,’ ” she says, smiling at me. I’ve got one child on my shoulders and another in my arms, and I’d keep it like that forever if I could. They want to know, “Where’s Mister Chef? Where’s Mister Chef?” Joe, Allison, and I say together, “Working!” We all laugh.
I spend the day hopping from door to door to all my old neighbors, telling everyone about my latest interview adventures. They want every little detail—who’s nice, who’s normal, who’s anorexic, who’s an alcoholic, and who’s doing whom. Allison and Joe urge me to get on the Howard Stern show (our mutual guilty pleasure) and I tell them that his wife spins at Soul Cycle. Laura and Mike are vying for a C Street cooking show. And Kathe and Jody are of course convinced Oprah’s new TV network needs a little Apron Anxiety. They all read my blog and closely follow my hot dates and ups and downs, and sitting in their presence, I feel like no one could believe in me more.
At the end of the lo
ng day, I put three houses of young children to bed, and Allison drives me ten blocks away to Chef’s new place, which sits inside a big converted warehouse on H Street, the hipster section of Capitol Hill. He’s at a hockey game with huge investors—an event he couldn’t get out of and told me about weeks ago. Knowing I’d arrive before him, he’s hidden a key for me under the building’s doormat. I can tell that Allison thinks he’s being inhospitable—all the women on the block have witnessed us at our absolute worst and are instinctively protective of my feelings—but letting myself in the door doesn’t bother me. I’m not his to pamper; he’s not mine to judge.
Once inside the main entrance, I find the door to his loft is unlocked, naturally. My ex, the eternal free spirit. Slowly entering, I cannot believe my eyes. It’s the coolest apartment I’ve ever seen, including Christopher Wagner’s. The ceilings are seventeen feet high, the kitchen is stupendous and elevated like a concert stage, the pipes are raw, the windows are endless, and half the walls are covered in chalkboards. The bathroom boasts a colossal claw-foot tub, along with a urinal and a bidet—and craziest of all, it has no door. A small part of me takes pleasure in knowing that the girls he brings home will have to publicly wipe themselves. Or worse.
I drop my bags and study his blackboards. Within the fifty-foot circumference of chicken scratch, graffiti art, and tic-tac-toe, the first thing I notice is the small contingency of girly drawings of hearts and lips, with names like “Kari” and “Cassidy” written in round, bubbly purple cursive. Ugh. I never liked girls with that kind of teenybopper penmanship. Whatever. I see other notes from his family and friends, gangster lyrics from old-school hip-hop songs, a scoreboard for upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship matches, some inside jokes that I don’t understand, and a to-do list:
Pickles
Plan safari to South Africa
Toilet paper
Good Morning America segment
Find wallet