After four months, takeout—even New York City takeout—can get really, really old.
But what else do you do—what else can you do—when your kitchen is under renovation for four months? (Six to eight weeks, the contractor estimated—HA!) The old kitchen had lasted us for twenty-four years, but the appliances were dying one by one, like needles dropping off an old Christmas tree. A wall had to be knocked down; clogged exhaust vents needed to be ripped out; my family of five (it was just me and Bob when we did the first reno) needed a table we could all sit around at the same time.
And so the demolition proceeded. Meanwhile, we fell into a routine. Pizza one night, Chinese another, hamburgers and fries (yes, I caved) another. The delivery guy from Texas Rotisserie came to our apartment so often, he’d just laugh when we opened the door: “Me again!” A roasted chicken and bagged salad from the supermarket was the closest we got to home cooking. On school nights, homework meant we couldn’t go out for dinner, despite the temptation of at least 10 good restaurants within a 5-minute walk. Instead, we sat in the dining room, squeezed amidst stacked cardboard boxes of dishes and pots and pans, pulling each evening’s repast out of plastic carrier bags, then rummaging for the packets of plastic cutlery, napkins, and salt and pepper pouches.
For four months.
The renovation might have been a little less painful if I had been able to ignore food—but unfortunately, it coincided with the time of year when I annually immerse myself in a gorge of reading for this year’s Best Food Writing selections. And the hungrier my reading made me, the harder it was to drum up enthusiasm for yet another aluminum pan of greasy arroz con pollo.
There I was, reading accounts of spectacular culinary accomplishments—like Colman Andrews’s ode to Venetian seafood (page 2), Jay Rayner’s appreciation of Heston Blumenthal’s artistry (page 225), or Lisa Abend’s behind-the-scenes look at El Bullí (page 249)—while picking through cold leftover Hunan pork with string beans for lunch. How I longed to try out the cooking techniques outlined by Pete Wells (page 42), Daniel Duane (page 46), or Indrani Sen (page 117); how I despaired of ever again being able to fill my refrigerator with artisanal cheeses like Eric LeMay describes (page 110) or Mike Madison’s melons (page 136) or Brett Anderson’s silky, plump fresh oysters (page 176).
As my own eating choices became of necessity weirder and weirder, I couldn’t help but respond to a number of wonderful writers waxing rhapsodic over their secret food indulgences—hence an entire new section titled “Guilty Pleasures.” I can’t say I totally agree with John Thorne’s passion for Vienna sausages (page 184), but Kevin Pang’s tater tots (page 188) and Elissa Altman’s (page 204) midnight hot dogs from Gray’s Papaya? Bring them on.
The book’s other new section this year, “Foodways,” also fell into place as if it had always been there. From Jessica B. Harris’s definitive essay on soul food (page 9) and Katy Vine’s inside look at Texas’ state fair deep-fry champions (page 25), to the cross-cultural musings of Geoff Nicholson (page 20) and Francis Lam (page 37), these examinations of how food defines culture—and vice-versa—were just too good not to highlight at the front of the book.
In the course of the spring, however, I witnessed a tempest roiling the food writing community. I’m talking about self-appointed cultural critic B. R. Myers’s now-famous—or perhaps I should say infamous—article in the March 2011 issue of The Atlantic. You can guess the thrust of it from its title: “The Moral Crusade Against Foodies.” In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that Myers plucked many quotes from recent Best Food Writing editions to bolster his thesis. I’ll admit, I take that as a badge of honor, to be quoted alongside Anthony Bourdain, Jeffrey Steingarten, Kim Severson, and Michael Pollan, who were cast as the villains in Myers’ anti-foodie scenario.
As the spring passed and food writer after food writer published their own impassioned, articulate responses to Myers’s essay, I faced a dilemma. Could I fairly include those pieces without including the essay that had provoked them? Yet how could I publish Myers’ polemic as an example of “best” food writing, when his techniques—taking quotes out of context, willfully misinterpreting writers’ words, switching logical tacks mid-argument, and choosing deliberately inflammatory language—represent the shabbiest tricks of sham journalism? In the end, I decided not to give Myers’ essay any more coverage than it has already gotten. If you’re curious, you can always find it on line. And while you’re at it, you might want to search on line for the responses by Francis Lam, Jonathan Kauffman, and Elissa Altman—all of whom happen to have been included already in this year’s book—among others.
Myers’ heavy-handed approach may have gone too far, but I have to say, a backlash against foodies was no surprise. American culture has jumped on the gourmet bandwagon all too enthusiastically in the past few years. For every committed locavore, there’s someone else trying out a 100-mile diet just for fun; for every serious gourmet cook, there’s someone else buying a sous vide machine that will eventually gather dust in a closet. The pendulum was bound to swing back eventually.
Nevertheless, searching through this year’s food writing candidates, I was struck by how little self-indulgence and elitism was on display. Food writing nowadays isn’t all about trophy dining or over-the-top culinary extravagances—it’s just as often about food deserts (page 147 [Silva]) and struggling small producers (page 16 [Nelson], page 152 [Estabrook], page 176 [Anderson]), about cooking for charity (page 52 [Brouilette] and page 61—[Parker]) and scrambling to get dinner on the table after a hard working day (page 42 [Wells]). This is the side of the food world that Myers deliberately ignores, so full of vegan self-righteousness that he can’t see the forest for the trees.
As it turned out, four months of being kitchen-deprived was an interesting experiment. Shockingly, teenagers will get tired of pizza if they eat it too often; I now have quantitative proof that a steady take-out diet is not only more expensive and less nutritious than home cooking, it doesn’t really save any time, either. The first meal I cooked in our finished kitchen—by request from the teenagers—was a simple pasta salad, with canned tuna, tri-color rotini, diced bell peppers, and grated parmesan. And it tasted heavenly.
Now that the renovation is finally finished, I have to say, it’s gorgeous. I fully appreciate how lucky I am to have a state-of-the-art kitchen, after so many years of malfunctioning appliances, broken cabinets, and limited counter space. At last I have six burners on my stove, two ovens, and an under-counter refrigerator with a wine drawer. At last I have a built-in spice rack, a pull-out cutting board, a cabinet with vertical dividers for trays and cookie sheets. At last I have shelves for my cookbooks and an extra drawer for the fish poacher and the asparagus steamer. I still have to replace all those grotty nonstick frypans that I threw away rather than pack up, but I’ve begun to restock my discarded spices (who knew fresh powdered ginger had such a kick?).
Now I’ve got to live up to that kitchen. Bring on the cooking lessons!