Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!)

by Morris, Amelia

  As a beginner cook whose chosen educational method involves following somewhat advanced recipes precisely and meticulously, the first thing I’m struck by is how the majority of cookbook and magazine recipes gloss over many of the necessary steps or leave them out altogether. This is most egregious in the listing of the ingredients, e.g., “Two medium leeks (white and pale green parts only), halved lengthwise, then cut crosswise into ⅓-inch pieces,” so that when you come to the section of the recipe that calls for leeks, it’s understood that you have already washed and chopped them. It’s therefore also understood that you know what a leek is and that you know how to properly wash one.

  Matt’s twenty-eighth birthday falls a week after the epic IKEA fight that almost did us both in. I tell him I’m going to make him one of his favorite dishes, pasta carbonara. The recipe from Bon Appétit calls for two leeks, ingredients I felt fine about when I wrote them down on the back of an old envelope, but now that I’m standing in the produce department holding up a leek, which is much larger than I anticipated—more like a branch than any onion I’ve ever seen—I suddenly feel much less confident. “This is a leek, right?” I ask a nearby employee. He confirms my suspicion. I grab two and move on. Other ingredients that give me pause? The parsley. Curly or flat? I choose flat, remembering a recent episode of Barefoot Contessa in which Ina used some in her linguine with shrimp scampi. Last, I wonder why cream isn’t on my list. Isn’t pasta carbonara a notoriously rich, creamy pasta? But then again, I’ve never made pasta carbonara, so what do I know?

  I arrive home and get to work, addressing the leeks before anything else. The Internet tells me to slice off and discard the root end as well as the dark-green tops. I’m then supposed to halve the remaining leek parts lengthwise, slice these halves crosswise, and place them into a bowl of cool water in order to remove the dirt. After five minutes, I’m amazed to find a layer of grit at the bottom of the bowl. Dealing with the parsley is much more tedious. I don’t yet know that I love parsley, that you can eat the stems, and that as a parsley lover, I can certainly use more than the one tablespoon the recipe calls for. Instead, I spend more time than I’d like pulling the leaves off the stems, one by one, washing them, patting them dry, finely chopping them, and measuring one measly tablespoon.

  Next up is another first for me: cooking bacon. Despite my using a pan that is so small that bacon fat covers much of the surface of the stovetop, this goes surprisingly well. The recipe tells me to pour off all but two tablespoons of the fat from the skillet. Novice that I am, instead of saving this precious animal fat for later uses, I pour it right down the drain in a move that I now know is referred to as a big culinary and plumbing no-no.

  I sauté my leeks in the bacon fat, cook the pasta in a pot of boiling water, and whisk my two eggs with the Parmesan and some of the pasta water. Adding the pasta water to the eggs and Parm feels strange, but again, I trust that the staff of Bon Appétit knows more than I do.

  The next step is the real head-scratcher. I’m supposed to add the drained pasta to the leeks in the skillet, remove the skillet from the heat, and then add the eggs-Parm-water mixture. Of course I haven’t timed the cooking of the pasta properly, so my leeks have already been cooling for a while now. Second, who wants a bunch of raw eggs in their pasta? And third, I’m intimidated by the directions, which specify not to overcook and curdle the eggs or undercook them and end up with runny sauce.

  Even though it’s his birthday meal, I call in Matt to get some advice from a third party. His face falls. “Wait. Where’s the cream?”

  “There is no cream.”

  His eyes widen, like a cartoon character’s. “I don’t think I want my birthday dinner.”

  “OK, you know what? You’re not helping.”

  On my own again, I decide to turn the heat back on the leeks and sauté them for another minute along with the pasta. Then, moving as quickly as possible, I turn off the heat and pour the egg-Parm-water mixture on top, stirring almost frantically for exactly two minutes, at which point I have to admit that it does look creamy.

  I stir in the bacon and parsley, divide it between two plates, and come out of the kitchen smiling, ready to sell my dish.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, “the eggs totally cooked just by coming in contact with the hot pasta and leeks.”

  But it’s too late. He’s seen too much. He eats half his plate skeptically before giving up altogether. “I can’t do this,” he says, and gets up to make himself a frozen pizza. “The uncooked eggs are all I can think about.”

  Happy birthday!

  After our IKEA marital meltdown, life is different. Not only is Matt quite literally hitting the pavement with a stack of résumés in hand—leaving the apartment for long stretches of time every day—he has also signed up for an LSAT prep course. That decision feels sad, like we’re giving up on our artistic dreams, but also strangely empowering. We may be struggling, but it’s no longer as aimless. We have a plan now.

  As for me? In between writing my thesis novel—which is due in a few months—cooking, and job-searching, I’m spending my time organizing our tiny apartment into some state of viable dwelling.

  One of these afternoons, I’m listening to music on my iPod via shuffle mode as I tackle organizing our bedroom/office for the second session (this time with IKEA-sourced file organizers). But soon I find myself distracted by this mess of papers under the desk I share with Matt. I had just cleared out this area. How could it have become such a nightmare already? But as I begin to go through it, it’s clear what’s happened.

  I’d recently asked Matt if he could free up a dresser drawer for me, and while he graciously had, he had simply moved its contents to the cabinet under our desk, an area I had just emptied the previous week.

  As I sort through everything, I discover a kind of time capsule of the various creative projects he’s worked on since we moved to LA four years ago. There’s page after page and notebook after notebook of research on topics from Django Reinhardt, the inspiration for one of the main characters in “A Blueprint for Successful Living,” to Appalachia, the region where a different feature-length script of his takes place, to Stephen Hawking, the inspiration for another project that never really got off the ground, to, of course, big game hunting and mythical creatures, which they had used to write Safari. Then of course, there are drafts of all these scripts, some with notes that agents and executives have given them. Intermixed with all of this creative work are old time cards from temp jobs, new-hire orientation packets, paperwork on his stock options from his Internet start-up job, paperwork from filing (and refiling) for unemployment as well as a giant binder from The Change Program—basically a collection of CDs documenting various people’s struggle with panic disorder, which Matt found helpful after that panic attack that sent him to the emergency room.

  As I make piles of what I think can be tossed and what I think he’ll want to hold on to, the song “Festival” by Sigur Rós comes on. It’s a beautiful song on its own, but when I hear it, I’m reminded of the film 127 Hours, in which it’s heavily featured. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is based on the true story of a young mountain climber who gets his arm trapped by a giant boulder while exploring an isolated desert canyon in Utah. He tries everything to free himself, but eventually (specifically, 127 hours later) he realizes that the only way he can do so is by cutting off his own arm.

  The scene is gruesome and hard to watch, but at the same time, it’s ultimately uplifting because he has finally realized, after five days, that it’s not the boulder that’s keeping him there, it’s his arm that’s keeping him there.

  It’s a nine-minute song, and as it builds and builds, I begin moving more things into the to-be-tossed pile, including a couple of scripts, which I notice have drafts of short stories and essays I’ve written on the other side. And suddenly, instead of feeling sad, I feel gratified to have a physical record of all of this work, to see it in this giant stack instead of as myriad separate digital files
on a computer screen. But mostly it feels good to let go of it, to move on.

  I’ve always lamented the fact that there is no map for how to make a living as an artist. We can major in Creative Writing or Filmmaking in college and then again in graduate school, but of course that doesn’t guarantee we’ll be able to make a living (or even pay back our student loans).

  This is one of the reasons why I think I was initially attracted to cooking; a recipe is a kind of map.

  But here’s the thing: Even with a detailed map, it can be hard to pinpoint your exact location once you’ve started your journey, once you’re on the trail and no longer just planning your route from the comfort of your own home.

  When you start to cook after a lifetime of not cooking, you suddenly discover exactly what goes into a dish you’ve been eating at restaurants for years. And with this discovery, you can appreciate the work involved.

  You discover that pasta carbonara doesn’t have cream in it.

  You discover that while there may not be a map for how to make a living as an artist, there is a map for how not to: by not writing, by not creating, and not trying. This stack of papers, I realize, isn’t a testament to failure, but a testament to effort, to not giving up, to the work itself.

  When Matt comes home that afternoon after a day of handing out his résumé, he collapses on the couch, admitting that he applied for a job at the Swatch store at the Beverly Center, the nearby mall that I find so palpably depressing, I avoid at all costs despite my love of shopping.

  Knowing that he’ll never even notice, I don’t tell him about my momentous cabinet cleaning. Instead, I curl up on the couch with him and ask him what he wants for dinner.

  This world recognizes results: clear success and epic failures. We’re drawn to stories of those who made it as well as those who had it and lost it. But for the first time, I float the camera up to get a bird’s-eye view of Matt’s and my coordinates. And for the first time, I recognize the effort in our journey. And though we may be far from our desired destination, at least we’re on the map. At least we’re still trying.

  I don’t know if it’s because Matt and I have grown up quite a bit since my initial attempt at homemade pasta carbonara, or if my constant repeating of something to the effect of how the eggs aren’t really raw, how both the hot pasta and the hot pan in fact cook them, has changed Matt’s mind over the years. But whichever it is, I’m happy to report that this meal is now a family favorite.

  PASTA CARBONARA

  Adapted from Jeanne Kelley, Bon Appétit Magazine

  Serves 4

  4 slices thick-cut smoked bacon

  Salt

  1 pound dried spaghetti

  ½ cup chopped shallots (1 or 2 shallots, depending on size)

  1 large egg, at room temperature

  3 large egg yolks, at room temperature

  ⅔ cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

  ½ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, or more if you like

  Freshly ground black pepper

  Using kitchen shears, scissor your 4 slices of bacon into a dice over the top of a large, heavy-bottomed skillet so that the pieces fall right into the pan. Cook the bacon over medium heat until it’s crisp, about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon pieces to a paper towel–lined plate to drain. If necessary, pour out any excess bacon fat (reserving it for another use) so that just about 3 tablespoons remain in the pan.

  The rest of this happens pretty quickly, so I would get your eggs separated, Parmesan measured, and parsley chopped. Ready? OK.

  Start cooking the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water.

  Turn the heat back to medium on the skillet with the bacon fat, add the shallots, and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the egg and egg yolks with the Parmesan.

  Right before the pasta is ready to drain, scoop ¾ cup of the pasta water from the pot and add ¼ cup of it to the egg and Parmesan mixture, whisking while you add it. Set aside.

  Drain the pasta and add it to the shallots in the skillet. Toss the pasta to coat it and then remove the skillet from the heat.

  Working fairly quickly, pour the egg mixture over the pasta and toss until the sauce looks creamy and the eggs are no longer raw, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining ½ cup of the pasta water, then stir in the reserved bacon and the parsley.

  Sprinkle with a little more Parmesan and some black pepper and serve immediately.

  Chapter 24

  Enjoying the Process

  Despite our combined inability to get full-time jobs and the ninety-degree average temperature inside our apartment, that summer Matt and I do manage to fry our own chicken, braid our own challah, layer our own pavlova, and fail at our own semifreddo. We get into a system where I do the cooking and Matt takes the photographs with our point-and-shoot digital camera. I also finish a round of revisions on my thesis, teach myself how to screen-print T-shirts in our garage, and sell homemade envelopes on Etsy. At the end of August, when I see a job listing for a part-time sales associate at Heath Ceramics, a high-end ceramic dinnerware and tile company that just opened a beautiful new showroom five minutes away from our apartment, I say to Matt, “Honestly, if I can get this job, my life would be perfect.”

  These will of course become famous last words that Matt will hold me to time and time again after I do get the job one week later.

  As a new hire, I mostly work on Saturdays and Sundays and stay in the windowless back room packing dinnerware orders. However, the mood at home lifts almost overnight. I have money coming in that isn’t a sporadic payment from an eBay or Etsy buyer! Plus, on the days I work, Matt greets me at home with dinner already made, which, in my opinion, is enough reason in itself to have a job.

  Employment is contagious. Matt changes temp agencies for a third time and within the next month, he finds semi-regular placement with a global public relations firm. It’s tedious work involving a lot of data entry, but it’s a job.

  Matt finds himself on the Walmart account, and as I’m now in retail, the holidays take on a whole new meaning: they’re about work. By November, my part-time hours have quickly turned into full-time ones and Matt’s full-time hours bleed into overtime.

  From the week of Thanksgiving until the day after New Year’s, life becomes a series of transactions, of explaining gift-wrapping options, gift-wrapping, and of assuring customers that I took the price tag off. Traveling to the East Coast to be with our families is impossible, but since we’re house-sitting again, we have extra space and can host my brother, who plans to visit us for a week over Christmas.

  And though Matt and I may not have time to take him to the Getty Villa or to Venice’s canals and the nearby shops, we are staying in this beautiful house; at the very least, I can host a holiday dinner party.

  I have December 20th off and spend the day trying to recreate one of the menus from local chef Suzanne Goin’s cookbook Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I peel pearl onions, braise short ribs in red wine and port, and puree potatoes to which I add so much butter I gain a newfound respect for the potato’s absorption abilities. And I do all of this ahead of time. Tomorrow night is the dinner.

  And somehow, with help from my brother and Matt, after a full day of holiday retail work, I come home and begin a different kind of work. I reheat the short ribs—which Suzanne tells me are even better on day two—and potato puree. I slice blood oranges and toss them with almonds, chunks of Parmesan, dates, and arugula. I pour myself a giant glass of wine and I host my first dinner party for eight.

  It’s by far my biggest culinary achievement to date.

  I then spend the next three days assuring customers I took the price tag off before gift-wrapping their gift.

  “You’d like me to double-check? OK, sure. No prob. Let me just unwrap the whole thing and give it a quick check. Yep, it’s off. OK. Now, let me just rewrap this for you. OK, great. Happy holidays!”

  On Christmas Day, we eat le
ftover Chinese for lunch and burnt French onion soup for dinner (I didn’t braise the onions with enough liquid) while watching the sci-fi thriller District 9. Happy holidays indeed!

  Come the end of January, I’m dying for a break. And with my holiday bonus, I treat myself to a long weekend in Seattle to visit my best friend in the world, Mary Anne, whom I made up with a long time ago. She’s currently a political science PhD candidate at the University of Washington and has always had an appreciation for food.

  And so it’s a no-brainer that we are going to make an epic meal together. For the week leading up to my departure, we send each other various ambitious-sounding recipe links. What about paella? Steak au poivre? Mussels and grilled bread with a homemade aioli?

  A coworker of mine has recently lent me the cookbook Living and Eating by John Pawson and Annie Bell. Pawson is an architect who favors minimalism; Bell is a food writer, and together, they make a case for the idea that the way we cook when we entertain shouldn’t be that different from the way we cook for just ourselves and our family. Simple food done well is their goal. It’s a gorgeous book I feel compelled to use as soon as possible.

  Since we’re going to be in Seattle, Mary Anne and I decide our entrée should be seafood-oriented. Over the phone, I pitch her the idea of making Pawson and Bell’s squid ink risotto with scallops followed by a cheese course of Perail with endive. “I’m not sure how to pronounce it,” I say before spelling it out to my French-speaking friend. “It’s P-e-r-a-i-l.”

  “Oh, Per-ay,” Mary Anne says.

  I read Pawson and Bell’s description: “ ‘The inside of this small round sheep’s milk cheese with its delicate scent of meadow flowers has the same milky liquid charm as Vacherin Mont d’Or, but it’s not as grand. Perail is a cheese to enjoy with endive when the company numbers just two or three.’ ”

  “I love it. Let’s do it,” she says.

  Upon my arrival, we grab cheap Thai food for dinner so that we can focus our energies on the next day’s menu. Mary Anne has been into baking whole heads of garlic drenched in olive oil, so that will be our appetizer. To counter all that richness, I suggest an arugula salad tossed in lemon juice and olive oil, which we’ll have before the risotto and cheese course. Dessert is the only thing we put off deciding on until tomorrow.