When I check out apartment 8F in DUMBO, on the same block as my parents’, I am so enamored with the kitchen that I am oblivious to the antagonizing noise level.
Somehow I miss the rumble of the subway every eight minutes, and the whoosh of cars and trucks rushing over the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. The apartment sits scenically, yet piercingly, smack in the middle of both, which I take as a selling point. The kitchen is so beautiful that I also don’t hear the constant catfights and love spats of the street, which in true New York fashion, are belted out loudly enough to penetrate the barely cracked windows on the eighth floor.
I rent the small studio on the spot, knowing that a separate chrome kitchen, large and well lit, with endless open shelving to boot, would be impossible to find again in my price range. The kitchen is almost half the apartment, resulting in minimal space for anything else besides a bed and an oversize farm table (on which I will eat, work, and pile up stacks of newspapers, bills, receipts, and organized chaos). The place also has a tiny Juliet balcony, with just enough room to grow rosemary, thyme, and basil. It’s only November, but I already have quite a fragrant vision for spring.
On move-in day, my family dismantles the Moby pile and hauls everything to 8F. As soon as I walk into my new pad, which I’ve already decorated in my head down to the peach-scented bathroom spray, I am taken aback by even more noise than I anticipated. In addition to everything else, there is so much construction going on outside that you can’t walk out the front door without covering your ears and giving the finger. The outdoor anarchy is set to last half a year, says a sympathetic neighbor, and incidentally, it starts at six o’clock in the morning every day of the week. “You can sleep late when you’re dead!” My ever-optimistic mother winks. Ughhh.
I continue to unpack my things and try to ignore the ruckus, busily setting up my Cuisinart food processor, All-Clad stock pot, boho dishes and Kmart coffeemaker; unrolling my shag rug; and dusting off my pineapple-shaped chandelier—the only material possessions I brought back from C Street. My new mattress arrives in the afternoon and I make the bed with crisp, white sheets and perfectly feathered pillows. Beth brings over fancy-smelling soaps from one of the luxury brands she does the PR for, and I blissfully line them along the edges of my porcelain tub (another perk that offsets the earache). My dad orders a large pizza from Sal and Val. My mom buys an orchid at Costco, where she’s also invested in a lifetime supply of Mom-things like tampons and rice pilaf. And my sister sneaks out of work with bejeweled candlesticks and Richard Avedon photography books from the “giveaway table.”
As night falls, I kick everyone out so I can play my music softly and really make apartment 8F my own. I am exhausted from all the lifting and bending, yet apprehensive about falling asleep with all the clamor. “Pretend you’re hearing the ocean,” says my mother, on her way out. Assuming I’ll be up all night, I grab a pile of cookbooks. I can’t even get through Gwyneth Paltrow’s pantry essentials before I pass out. From under the subway, in one of Brooklyn’s loudest nooks, I sleep like a baby. Without having to quiet all the inner noise, the outside noise is no problem.
Hello, responsibility; good-bye, restaurants, I say to myself, after having put down the first and last month’s rent, plus the sucker punch of a security deposit. My bank account is almost empty, meaning not only do I have to seriously simmer down on my restaurant binge, but also it’s critical that I focus on my freelance work, too. Benito Bagel and I have even been e-mailing a little, but since I’m tenaciously pitching ideas and reconnecting with editors all day, and covering events all night (and still nursing a broken heart), I’m in no rush for our rendezvous. Though I know it will happen sooner than later.
The most exciting assignments I get come from New York magazine’s food blog, Grub Street. I initiated the relationship by asking to cover a private event at Barneys on Madison Avenue to celebrate their holiday window display, featuring some of New York’s most iconic chefs. I hoped that my first food assignment at my favorite magazine would be a little less daunting against the backdrop of my favorite store. And I was right. That night, I delivered ten fresh food stories to Grub Street, three of which they published the next day: Anthony Bourdain recommending me his favorite food memoirs; Mario Batali describing how to roast a Thanksgiving turkey in a pizza oven; and Bobby Flay confessing that he keeps only vodka and ice cream in his freezer. Ultimately, I make less money that night than what I spend in the shoe department, but it results in a steady, and priceless, stream of assignments from the food editors at the magazine. Happy holidays to me.
Back in DUMBO, I work on maximizing my minuscule Brooklyn apartment. I go to ABC Carpet & Home and apologize to my former boss for rudely running away from him weeks earlier. He gives me a big hug and an even bigger discount on a birdcagelike lamp. I refresh Craigslist every five minutes, finding sweet deals on Saarinen tulip chairs and a Scandinavian sideboard to store my quirky dishware and mismatched mugs, which are indeed collecting dirt, but crying out for their comeback. My mom and I go Dumpster diving, roaming the Brooklyn Heights promenade, where she once scored an oriental rug worth $20,000, along with two abandoned Oscar Awards. (“Divorce!” said the doorman, winking.)
My most highly anticipated day comes a week after moving in, when I finally have time to drive to the iconic, foodie fairyland called Fairway. I am so giddy you would think I was heading to the south of France, but really it’s just the south of Brooklyn. Fairway is a giant warehouse with its most dramatic location in Red Hook, overlooking the harbor and evoking the feeling of both Alcatraz and an open-air European market. It’s a labyrinth of lush produce, cheeses, and chocolates, with aisles of domestic and imported everything.
I spend three hours there, grazing the rows of dried pasta, exotic beans, and excessive candy bins, dragging my happy feet from semolina flours to grapeseed oils, exuberantly discussing the definition of “unctuous” with the cheerful cheesemonger, who introduces me to Spanish Mahon when I ask for something impressive but not too expensive. He also suggests I purchase some chestnut honey for my next cheese plate, and I obediently add the jar to my cart.
In the end, I leave with most of the same foods I’ve always lived on as an adult: Greek yogurt, moderately flavored (and priced) cheese, dark chocolate, black licorice, crisp apples, plump avocados, whole carrots, smoked almonds, dried apricots, earthy breads, long pasta, and fizzy water. The upgraded version of me adds some expensive olive oil, coarse sea salt, lots of fresh herbs, a rack of lamb, and a bouquet of winter white daisies.
As soon as I get home, I sit at my computer with a huge chunk of chèvre melted on a thick slice of grainy bread, and I e-mail Benito Bagel (who’s asked me to call him Benjy). “Let’s meet up tonight.”
We agree to have our first date at a local dive bar, which is equal distance from both our apartments. I have an hour to get ready when it occurs to me that I desperately need a new “single chick” look. For the past few months back on the East Coast, I’ve worn dark skinny jeans with a beat-up T-shirt and a tight leather jacket. My shoes are either dirty Converse sneakers or bedraggled ballet flats. I wear no jewelry except for Shelley’s long, gold, twinkling necklace. Vogue might classify my style as New York bitch. Maybe this isn’t the right message for a date.
Straight from the shower, I scurry down the street to my sister’s closet. No one is home. I quickly snag a soft, white peasant shirt that she bought a few years ago in Italy, and squeeze myself into a pair of her light blue jeans with a slight bell-bottom flair. I swap my sneakers for her alligator-skin wedges, and I bangle up my right wrist with a dozen wiry bracelets. Pulling up my hair all messy and morning-after, I’ve transformed myself from pissed-off to pretty. It’s cold in mid-November, so I reluctantly take a nubby peacoat from the closet and duck out the front door. Let’s do this.
I’ve never been nervous for first dates and this one is no different, even though it is my first one in a while. Excitedly, I walk to Henry St. Ale House, where I’m blown in the door by the wind. I immediately notice Benjy. He’s very good looking, with a big head of floppy, light brown hair, beautiful olive skin, and a cool corduroy blazer. I quickly ditch the unflattering coat and say hello. We kiss on the cheek, but before I even sit down, I excuse myself to the ladies’ room. My eyes are watering badly from the wind, and my mascara has run. When I come back to the bar, I overexplain the fact that I’m “totally not crying.” He says I can calm down, but nicely.
I order a beer and urge myself to shut up about the tears already. He’s a mellow guy, who preempts the conversation by saying that the reason he subscribes to online dating is because he thinks he might be a little socially awkward. He also says that he’s looking for a serious relationship because he’s “very lonely.” It’s endearing to meet someone who puts it all out there up front, and who isn’t embarrassed to admit that being alone can be rough. I’ve always gravitated to open people like myself, but I am not sure how to respond to his utter lack of ego. So I shift the conversation to the ultimate neutralizer: food.
Much more of an eccentric creature than I am, Benjy is on a mission to try every roller coaster in the country to combat a childhood fear, he collects fading photography from weddings of the 1950s, and he considers himself New York’s most eminent coleslaw aficionado—oh, and he is also an expert on the underground food scene. I’ve never heard of any of the cheap and chic dives he swears by. A true nonconformist, almost to the point of being a buzzkill, he couldn’t care less about my secret phone number for all of Keith McNally’s restaurants, or that Emeril Lagasse once fed me banana cream pie on national television, or how many people follow me and my blog on Twitter. But that’s okay. This odd duck is attractive and intriguing.
I would be lying to myself if I didn’t acknowledge the one thing about Benito Bagel that really blows my mind: he is Chef’s raging opposite. Where Chef was luminous, Benjy is dimly lit. He’s appalled by anything involving consumerism or celebrity, without an iota of interest in being popular, or even well liked, by anyone other than himself. And because he works from home and isn’t all that engaged by his career choice in “helping the rich get richer,” Benjy has a lot of free time on his hands. Even though I don’t feel love at first sight, I’m pleased about spending time with such a fundamentally different type of man.
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 makes 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 really 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.
It takes every bone in my body not to send the pictures to Chef, but considering how off-kilter he’s been today (having droned on and on about the unfairness of life in the five messages he’s left me), I decide against it. Baiting him would be cruel … to both of us.
Before even taking a bite, my family is visibly astounded. They admit they never believed that I could pull off an entire meal, let alone something so elegant. “I hope you eat your words!” I say, smiling. “Literally! Eat!”
This New Year’s Eve dinner turns out to be the most delicious meal I ever made. There are second and third helpings, loud moans, and by the end of the meal, every single plate is licked clean. Our brains are soaked in flavor. My friends are stuffed. My sister can’t stop smiling. The meatballs were scrumptious small wonders and the pasta was earthy and addictive. The only minor disappointment was the fig salad. I should have listened to my gut; figs just aren’t meant to be served midwinter. Seasonal is a real thing. But no one really noticed except me (and probably Benjy).
I sneak away to check my BlackBerry and read everyone’s reply to the food porn I sent earlier. In the course of our hour-long dinner, I see that I have five more missed calls from Chef and a text that says he’s throwing his phone in National Harbor if I don’t pick up again. He knows I’m throwing a big dinner party, but he is upset, which makes me upset. I try with everything I have to push my emotions aside. If I fall apart now, it will steal every inch of integrity I put into this monumental meal. And I’m not going to let that happen.
It’s just before midnight and the fireworks on the Hudson River are starting. My mother and father insist on cleaning up while us “kids” go up to the roof. Drunk and bundled up, overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge, I confess to Beth and Jill that months ago on C Street, I served them banana bread with bugs in it. “You did what?!” cries Jill, a raging germophobe to began with. We are screaming and crying with laughter. My sister is entangled in her new beau, who is hopefully a better kisser than he is a conversationalist. Tommy is taking candid pictures of the bombed Jill and Beth, party-girl poses and pouring champagne into each other’s puckered lips. Benjy is quietly keeping me warm.
We have one minute left to go until 2011. Some of my parents’ neighbors, also taking advantage of the view from the roof, introduce themselves and extend their chilled bottles of French bubbly and opulent trays of berries and bonbons to us. I raise my glass, in my favorite city, with my closest friends and my well-fed family and toast, “To new beginnings!” Wiping away my runaway tears, dismissively blaming the wind, I release all the tension of the day, and maybe even the year. And then, hoping the sweetness will cut the tang, I add a raspberry to the fizz.
