Year of the Cow

by Jared Stone

  I am not a morning person.

  I deeply wish that I were, but alas, it is not to be. When the morning sun finally just crests the horizon and streams through the partially drawn curtains into my bedroom—I want nothing more than to slumber on, basking in those sunbeams like a Benadryl-addled cat.

  My wife is a morning person. This may perhaps explain why on this (presumably) gorgeous morning she is gently nudging me, rousing me from my slumber earlier than is usual. It may explain it, but somehow I know it doesn’t. Not fully. As I open my eyes, she’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” she offers.

  “Morning,” I croak. This is not an hour in which civilized people interact. “Everything okay?”

  “Yep. Everything’s good.” She smiles slightly. “I’m pregnant.”

  Slowly, I grin. “Are you sure?”

  She nods. “I’m sure. I’m very, very sure.”

  “That’s wonderful…” I grin wider. “That’s fantastic!” I sit up to throw my arms around her and pull her back into bed.

  * * *

  “This looks wrong.”

  I’m standing in my kitchen. On my counter are a can of cranberry sauce, a sack of Lipton dry onion soup mix, a bottle of ketchup, and a beer. “This looks very, very wrong.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine, sweetie,” Summer says. “Ellen knows what she’s doing.”

  Ellen is Summer’s boss. Together, they negotiate the somewhat treacherous waters of acquiring the rights to use music in movies. What’s more, Ellen knows everyone in town. Want to sell a car? “I know a guy.” Need to redo your kitchen? “Visit my friend, here. Drop my name.” Looking for a way to smuggle endangered monkeys across the border—any border? “Call this number, wait for the beep, and say, ‘The banana doesn’t fall far from the tree.’” We call her the Godmother.

  I’m cooking a seder this year, primarily because it seems like such a beautiful ritual. It’s an excuse to sit with friends and loved ones and share a meal. How could I resist?

  Naturally, when I began the search for brisket recipes, Summer suggested we turn to the Godmother.

  “Best brisket on Earth,” she promised. “This recipe won a brisket cook-off competition at my temple. There were over a hundred entries, and this one won. Need I say more?”

  Looking at the ingredients on my counter—maybe.

  I turn my attention to the brisket. I haven’t cooked this cut before. Because each steer has only two, I’m very cautious about wrecking them. For a seder, however, I’ll take that chance.

  The brisket is the breast of the steer, between and in front of the two front legs. It’s frequently used in Jewish cuisine because kosher beef in North America is taken only from the front half of the animal. There isn’t a lot of oxtail served up in Jewish delis.

  Reading this recipe, I see it’s essentially a braise. I know braises. I’ve done more braises than I can count. I’m the Baron of Braises. The Potentate of Pot Roasts. The Magister of Moisture. I can braise a chuck roast with one hand and spin commemorative plates with the other. I got this.

  Generally, I would prefer to sear a piece of beef before braising. Searing, contrary to popular belief, does not “seal in juices” or anything of the sort. What searing does is make the surface of the cut golden brown and delicious. And golden brown and delicious tastes good.

  “Honey,” I note, reading the recipe, “there’s no sear in this recipe.”

  “So?” my wife replies.

  “I think there should be a sear,” I continue. “And I don’t think there’s enough liquid. I want to add some beef stock.”

  “Whatever you want to do, sweetie. Ellen is simply a Jewish matriarch, having grown up in a kosher household cooking this for her own family every Passover for decades. This is only supposed to be the Best Passover Brisket Ever. But I’m sure you know best.”

  My wife is so dry, she’s got vermouth in her veins. But she has a point.

  She continues. “You’re overthinking it. Listen to the Godmother.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  I prep my mise en place. This consists of setting everything on the counter and opening it: beer, ketchup, cranberry sauce, and dry soup mix. Then I dump it all in a big bowl and stir. This is without question the strangest braising liquid I’ve ever seen. It’s fizzy and fruity, with big globular chunks of cranberry floating in it. I must have faith.

  I pour the primordial sludge of the braising liquid over the meat and slide the whole morass into the oven. One thing this recipe has going for it is that it suggests cooking the meat the day before serving and just reheating it before service. This is smart; the flavors in the meat and the liquid meld during the time between when they’re cooked and when they’re eaten. That’s part of the reason that, say, chili is always better the next day (if your chili happens to consist of braised meat).

  When the brisket is soft but not falling to pieces, I pull it from the oven, slice, and return to the liquid before stashing it in the fridge for the night.

  The next day, I skim the fat off the top of the braising liquid and slide the pan back into a warm oven. Ellen suggests pairing the brisket with mashed potatoes and asparagus. So, asparagus and mashed it is.

  Mashed potatoes was the first real dish I learned to make.

  During the heyday of my misspent youth, I worked as a grip on indie film shoots in the Midwest. That’s how Ben and I met; he was my key grip, and I was one of the guys in his crew. If a director with more vision than money needed elegant solutions to ridiculous problems, we were the guys for the job. In film, and especially indie films, crews can get pretty tight. Working with the same bunch of guys on twenty-hour days in rain and sleet and snow, in gorgeous penthouses and grimy industrial parks—doing hard, heavy, yet deeply creative and mentally challenging work—you get to know your guys really well. You become almost like family.

  One of the guys in our crew was a gaffer named Ian. He was the human equivalent of those walking stick insects that live in Borneo and look like twigs. He may still be the tallest person I’ve ever met. When we worked together, he had hair down to his waist and never really stood fully upright during the daytime lest the rest of us try to tell time by charting his shadow.

  Ian liked potatoes. A lot. Once, I mentioned that I didn’t really know how to make mashed potatoes, and he looked at me like I’d just spontaneously started Tuvan throat singing. Without hesitation, he grabbed a spare scrap of paper and jotted down his recipe for mashed potatoes. “You’ll like these,” he said. “Don’t lose this paper.” To this day, I haven’t.

  Ian’s potatoes became the basis of my own mashed potato recipe, which I’ve tweaked and modified over the years. When pulled fresh from the oven, the dish offers a gently caramelized crust atop garlicky pillows fluffy with dairy. The potatoes aren’t difficult to make, but they are labor-intensive. I set to work, while prepping the asparagus to roast.

  I should note at this point that we’re not actually Jewish—on my better days, perhaps I’m Jewesque—but I enjoy the idea of a seder. A meal, shared with family and friends, lingered over, appreciated. The excuse it offers for us to sit together on a dark night and enjoy one another’s company.

  More pointedly, however, I have no idea what I’m doing.

  I’m in luck, though. Seders have instruction manuals called Haggadahs, which detail the ins and outs of the ritual—mostly a series of specific dishes and a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. To cover my cultural ignorance, I’m using Michael Rubiner’s Two-Minute Haggadah, printed out from Slate.com. I even stapled the printout on the right-hand side for veracity, just like real, nonridiculously abbreviated Haggadahs. I want to make sure Declan has a wide range of cultural experiences, even if imperfectly administered. I’ve skimmed the document, so I figure I can drive this boat, at least well enough to satisfy a three-year-old.

  Once seated around the table, we begin. I look over my Haggad
ah. “Thanks, God, for creating wine.” Amen there. I reach to pour some wine for Summer, to find her hand over her glass.

  “Nope,” she says.

  I smile. “Sorry—habit.” I hop up to get her a glass of water.

  “No problem,” she says. “As soon as this baby arrives, it’ll be wine, sushi, and cold cuts for days.”

  I laugh and continue reading. “Thanks, God, for creating produce.” Um, wait. What? I must have missed that part when I skimmed the Haggadah earlier. I see parsley referenced. I don’t have parsley. Hmm. I need vegetation. I have pickles. Kosher dills, even. I offer dill pickles to everyone, though pregnant wife turns a delightful shade of nauseated green when the pickles come within five feet of her. I retract her pickle offer and give them instead to Declan. Done.

  Summer watches me fumble and smirks. “First Passover?”

  “Is it obvious? On to the four questions…” Wait, what? “There’s a quiz?” I ask. This is unexpected. I read further in the Haggadah. I have no context from which to answer these questions. I know vaguely what they’re about, but that’s it. At a loss, I improvise. “Dec … should you be nice to people?”

  “Yes!”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “Super sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “Is this the fourth question?”

  A pause, as he counts on his fingers. “Yes!”

  “Correct. Quiz passed.” Cheering ensues. Once more I check my seder instructions: Find the matzo. “Okay, Tiny Man … I hid matzo somewhere in the living room. Go!”

  Summer laughs.

  “What’s matzo?” Declan asks.

  “It’s like a cracker. There’s a cracker hidden somewhere over there. Go!”

  “That room is filthy,” Summer says. “He can’t eat the matzo…”

  “Why can’t I eat it?” Dec asks.

  “I took care of it,” I insist. “Dec. Cracker. Go!”

  Declan hops down from his seat and rushes into the living room. He looks all around for the matzo. “I don’t see it, Daddy…”

  “Maybe a dust bunny ate it,” Summer opines.

  “Hush, you.” I turn back to Declan. “Try the coffee table.”

  He looks for a moment, pawing around under the coffee table. Then his eyes light up. “I found it!” He pulls out a single sheet of matzo, sealed in a Ziploc bag. “Daddy, I found it!”

  “Nice work, buddy. Bring that over here.”

  Summer sees the matzo, wrapped in a plastic Baggie like drugs in a cop show, and starts laughing. After a moment, so do I.

  Dec digs into the matzo as I check my seder instructions. It says something about slouching; free people are allowed to slouch at the table, whereas slaves—as the Jews were in Egypt—had to stand. So slouching at seders is a thing. I like slouching. “Let’s jump straight to the slouching,” I suggest, pouring a little water for everyone and raising a glass. “Here’s to bad posture. And to making time to eat together.”

  “L’chaim,” Summer says.

  “Cheers!” Dec enthuses.

  We each take a sip, savoring the moment and the experience of taking the time to share a meal in one another’s company. I serve up fat piles of mashed potatoes, heavy with dairy and onion. Crossed with roasted spears of asparagus and draped with slices of incredibly tender brisket. It’s delicious. I’m glad I hewed closely to Ellen’s recipe—any added liquid would have wrecked it.

  My family and I share a delightful, homey meal made with love. An opportunity to spend a cool spring evening with those closest to me. A moment to count my blessings. We didn’t get any of the details of the seder right—or even close to right, really. I’m pretty sure that mixing dairy and meat violated some Jewish dietary laws—but we did our best. And our evening was all the richer for it.

  “Daddy, I don’t think this cracker is any good,” Dec says, his face contorted with disgust.

  I laugh. “It tastes funny because it’s unleavened. When the Israelites fled Egypt, they didn’t have any time to make real bread.”

  “And that’s one of the four questions,” Summer notes. “‘Why are we eating only matzo?’ Good work, Stone.”

  I check my Haggadah. She’s right. The guy leading the seder is supposed to ask the kids present four questions—this is one of them. I’ve inadvertently stumbled into some semblance of accuracy.

  “What’s unleavened?” Declan asks.

  I explain yeast and how it works. Declan listens, learning a little about the food he eats. A process I’m still continuing myself. We may have missed some of the four questions, but we’re getting more answers every day.

  * * *

  It’s about three in the afternoon. I’m standing in the hallway of the UCLA Medical Center; bright sunlight streams in through hallway windows. I haven’t slept much. I look down at my son, holding my hand. “You ready, buddy?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Okay. She’s super excited to meet you.”

  “Really?” he asks, raising his eyes to mine. He’s clutching a brand-new little girl’s backpack, full of blankets, toys, and stuffed animals. A gift.

  “Really.” I nod. “Let’s go in.”

  We slowly crack open the door to a hospital room. The curtains are drawn, and in the dim light I can see Summer sitting on a couch by the window. Declan and I creep into the room. “Is she asleep?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” Summer answers, craning her neck to peek into a plastic crib in the center of the room. “I think she just woke up.”

  Declan and I take a few more steps into the room. I lift him up into my arms, and we peer into the crib. There, blinking up at us with enormous blue eyes, is my new daughter. Nora.

  “Hi, Nora. This is your big brother, Declan.” My son only stares, transfixed. I lean into his ear and whisper, “Dec, this is your sister, Nora.”

  “Hi, Nora,” he whispers, his voice creaky. She coos and blinks. Slowly, Declan smiles.

  I set Declan gently on the ground. “Would you like to hold her?”

  He thinks a moment, then his whole face lights up. He nods.

  * * *

  Declan takes to Nora immediately. As soon as we bring her home, they’re inseparable. He wants to hold her all the time, and he’s incredibly gentle. He nudges our hundred-pound dog out of the way when she gets too close and keeps trying to offer her wildly inappropriate toys and joys that he likes—on the logic that if he likes them, she’ll like them, too. “Nora, do you want to hold my lightsaber?” “Nora, I built a robot for you.” “Nora, look! I found Daddy’s skateboard!”

  Family floods into our Los Angeles home from far and farther away—Texas, Kansas, Georgia. We rarely get to see our parents; Summer and I are the sole outposts of our families on the West Coast. Our nearest relatives live two thousand miles away, so it’s wonderful to have them darken our doorway to welcome the newest addition to our family.

  To celebrate Nora’s birth and the all-too-rare visits of far-flung relatives, we do what people always do to mark events and milestones. We cook. As the next few weeks blur together into a disjointed mental slide show of diapers and laughs and late-night feedings—we all cook together. And we eat like kings.

  I braise a chuck roast as a welcome when Summer’s mother, Tricia, comes to town.

  And then Tricia does the same for us, when we’re too tired to think straight or make consonant sounds with our mouths.

  I grill rib eyes to mark the first time my parents have been able to visit the Left Coast in years.

  And then I turn leftovers into a hash for us all to eat for breakfast; I haven’t gone shopping in a couple of weeks, and we’re down to eating sauerkraut and canned sardines.

  It’s easy to cook whole foods and glorious meals when time is cheap and there’s nothing more pressing clamoring for attention. It’s something else entirely with a houseful of guests and only a few hours of sleep a night, with a brand-new life in the world that needs what she needs when she needs
it.

  In those times, cooking becomes again what it always was, back before we forgot the value of preparing a meal. Before we became accustomed to food extruded and sprinkled with flavor dust and sold two for $1.99. Cooking is a solace. A little corner of the world where I store my peace of mind. While everything’s blowing up and nothing’s going right, and what is the dog into? And why is my daughter still crying, I just changed her! In the middle of all this calamity, I will have a pot roast. In my often futile daily rush to get ahead and get things done—this actually is done. This is finished. I can find something in the freezer and it will be nutritious and satisfying and wholesome, as long as I don’t wreck it. And then we can sit down together, take a deep breath, and enjoy it. There will be dinner. We will not starve.

  And it will be an event. A moment, probably timed for after the kids fall asleep, where we can sit. Exhale. And for just that fleeting moment—clean no floors. Change no diapers. Answer no e-mails. And be people again. An opportunity to tell a tale between bites of a meal hard fought for and toiled over. To relate an anecdote—something cute or terrifying that happened when everybody else was turned away or trying to prevent Armageddon from a different angle. To raise a glass and take a breath before our eyes slip shut into slumber and we do it all again, only another day older.

  When people talk about the good life—what do they mean if not this?

  Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, in The Raw and the Cooked, proposed cooking as one of the handful of delineators between humans and all the other beasts of the earth. He saw it as a physical example of human control over the natural world. In the act of cooking, he argued, we transform organic matter from a natural to a cultural object. Cooking, then, marks the very edge of what it is to be human.

  Others have taken the primacy of cooking even further—anthropologist Richard Wrangham, in his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, posits that beyond being a marker for humanity, the act of cooking actually enabled the human species. By cooking food, and specifically meat, our hominid forebears could extract more energy from that food. Per this cooking hypothesis, the ability to cook food meant that we could, in essence, begin the digestive process outside the body, rather than performing that task solely in the gastrointestinal tract as the other apes do. This ability changed us irrevocably; we could afford to have smaller molars, adapted to softer cooked foods. Shorter intestinal length, as those intestines didn’t have to do as much work. The caloric surplus that ensued allowed early hominids to develop larger brains and to use those larger brains to fully master fire, come down from the trees, and take the first tentative steps toward Homo sapiens.