No matter how hard I try, after a few months together, my chemistry with Benjy is just not there. In fact, the decrescendo is happening rapidly. We’re starting to distinctly annoy each other, or so it seems, and I feel it’s time to cut our losses before anyone gets too hurt. So just before Valentine’s Day, I ask Benito Bagel to join me at the dive bar where we had our first date.
I try to make the breakup as quick and painless as possible, telling myself that he’s just as likely to be done with me. But because I’m nervous, and because I truly respect him, I get myself too worked up and my delivery is off.
“I’m thinking this has gone as far as it can go,” I start off, sounding nasty and coldhearted straight out of the gate, instead of tender but direct, which was my intention.
When he looks at me with sheer shock, I dig myself into a deeper hole.
“You know, I’m letting you off the hook. We can just be, like, over.”
He abruptly stands up, looking horrified and extremely offended, raising his right hand like a first grader who needs the bathroom, and says, “I would like to go now, please.” Before I can begin to redeem myself, change lanes, actually behave like a compassionate human being, he leaves me stranded in the corner booth sooner than our Blue Moons can arrive. I end up drinking both beers and never hear from him again.
I suppose I thought we both saw the same subtext of our relationship: it wasn’t true love—or even trudging in that direction—at least not for me, and perhaps naïvely, I assumed not for him. Looking back, I did drag him along while I tried to rebuild, but at the time I thought I was just giving dating another shot. I’ll always be grateful for my sweet stint with Benjy. What I learned from our short time together was how nice it feels to be with someone who is simply kind, honest, and dependable.
On Valentine’s Day, just a week after my ungraceful breakup, I take my first spin class at SoulCycle since leaving New York for Washington over two years ago. I’m so excited at the prospect of putting on my spandex and spin shoes that I’m barely mindful of the potentially gloomy holiday. The 7:30 class that usually has a waiting list is close to empty tonight. It’s just me and a few other upbeat, well-toned singletons that, as unattached New Yorkers, would rather be productive than pathetic. We all share a collective “Never let ‘em see ya sweat” mentality. Well, unless you’re about to burn off eight hundred calories in under an hour.
Our teacher’s name is Rique, and he’s a full-blown sex bomb. In fact, when the lights go down and the music goes up, the first song he plays is “Tonight (I’m Fuckin’ You)” by Enrique Iglesias. And we’re off. The beat is transforming, Rique is turning us all on, and the room is as electric as I had remembered. Even if I’m wearing a sports bra instead of a lace bra, and riding a bike instead of a boyfriend, this intoxicating, unventilated room is the only place I want to be tonight. For forty-five minutes straight, I spin my ass off. I spin like never before. And I spin the last of any feelings I had for Benjy right out of me.
After class, my legs throbbing in the best possible way, I walk a few blocks to Whole Foods in Union Square. At nine o’clock on Valentine’s Day, it’s prime dinner-reservation hour. Dozens of lovestruck couples are strolling by me—girls in flippy blowouts and boys in popped, pin-striped collars. I can’t help but notice all the roses in hands and sparkles on faces. But I am happy for the lovebirds, eating their prix fixe romantic meals wherever Yelp tells them to, and going home to be spanked thanks to Victoria and all her secrets. Good for them.
The only action I’m getting tonight is in the apron. It’s a great night for a test kitchen under the bridge, so I’m steaming mussels for the first time, if all goes well. I don’t even know if I like mussels, to be honest, but everyone keeps saying they’re the perfect home-cooked meal for an easy, intimate dinner (should I ever have another worthy candidate). Benjy introduced me to a few new dishes and cuisines, whether I liked them or not, and I’m trying to keep the food-venturous momentum going. Mussels aren’t exactly alligator schnitzel, of course, but they’re not a move in the wrong direction. Any recipe that includes the term “debearding” seems unusual enough for me.
As I search for my ingredients, I look around the market at all the single shoppers who tonight will be reading recipes instead of Hallmark cards, and reveling under the light of the refrigerator bulb instead of a candelabra. The Goth girl in front of me will be making a tofu pad Thai, it would appear; the divorced dad is planning a filet mignon for one. I feel the struggle in the air, which I appreciate, and as I create all their stories, I wonder if they have figured out mine. (Then again, have I?) I am proud to stand in the organic aisles with the likes of secret mistresses, chronic commitment phobes, sexually deprived, out of luck, independent and codependent dumpers and dumpees. They might not have suitors, but they have spirit.
In the long checkout line, I’m surprised to see a random food writer friend approaching as I stretch my sore limbs. His reviews can be merciless, and depending on the restaurant, he’s either blacklisted or beloved. We became friends several years ago, back in the Us Weekly days, long before Bolognese and bouillabaisse were how anyone paid their rent. I tell him I’m experimenting with mussels. He tells me he and his girlfriend are taking a break. He delicately asks what happened in D.C., explaining that no one really understands the story of our breakup. I tell him it’s not so black and white, but if it’s all off the record, I can try to explain. A minute into my monologue, and six Bridget Joneses before checkout, he interrupts me.
“The problem is, Alyssa,” he says with seriousness, “you never caught on to the secret.”
“What secret?” I ask, terrified, knowing he’s a hawk.
“The secret is that you were the special one.”
Whoa. In all my conversations about Chef with my best friends, family members, and wise editors, I’ve never had a more poignant moment. Hovering over my garlic and parsley, wearing fleece and pom-pom socks, alone on Valentine’s Day, I feel deeply liberated by his words.
There has always been a part of me that’s avoided too much deep self-reflection on the downfall of Chef and me. I can recite all of our fights, all of our issues, and all of the mistakes, from which there would be no return, that he and I both made. But I’ve never been able to identify what was at the core of our ultimate contamination. And here it is, plain and simple: my identity was compromised; the sentiment of being “less than” made me feel ugly and made me act erratically. Yet all along, I was the special one. I see that now; I feel that now. But if only I had known then.
“Lys, there’s one more secret,” he calls as I walk toward the cashier.
“What is it?” I shout back.
“Those aren’t mussels. They’re clams.”
Ah, crap!
By ten o’clock, I am home preparing an impossibly easy, yet very elegant meal (of actual mussels) that takes no more than ten minutes. First I give the little suckers their facials, the “debearding,” then they all go into a bath of butter, wine, and garlic. Presto! Dinner is ready, my favorite playlist is singing softly, and I eat my Valentine’s Day moules quietly and contemplatively. I get into bed and watch a couple of TV shows saved on the DVR. I fall asleep alone, stretched out, well fed, entertained, and enlightened.
AS WINTER turns to spring, I get busier than ever with cooking, baking, entertaining, dining out, and writing about it all. Some foods like speck (a speck of what?) and offal (which I misspelled as awful when transcribing an interview) still throw me off, and I am as awkward with chopsticks as I am with, say, doing the moonwalk. Yet I see myself constantly evolving, almost without trying. I now use words like “anise” to categorize the black licorice flavor I love so much in foods like fennel, drinks like ouzo, and of course, candy like Good & Plenty. “Sassafras” describes soft drinks and sweets that remind me of root beer; I say “custard” instead of “pudding,” “squid” instead of “calamari,” “crème fraîche” instead of “Cool Whip.” Sandwiches are no longer sandwiches but tartines, and such tartines often bestow homemade pickled radishes, plum chutney, and the tolerable cousin to my nemesis, mayonnaise, which I can finally spell and pronounce: “aioli.” I am turned on by turnips, offended by overcooked eggs, and can finally deliver the word “cockles” without cracking up.
Rapacious vernacular aside, there are many acquired tastes that I don’t think I’ll ever actually acquire, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Sardines make me quiver (and not in the good way), and the avant-garde lard trend is a huge gross-out. Any food too spicy, raw, or fleshlike is not going to happen—search me, you won’t find them, no matter what food crime I’m committing. My Jewish-girl aversion to pork, in general, is another massive violation of the gourmet code of behavior. So chances are I’ll never be a gangster eater—no pig butt or fish eyeballs for me, please—but I make no apologies and still consider myself largely culinary-spirited. Like most things in life, it doesn’t have to be so all-or-nothing.
My home cooking is equally an ongoing experiment. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise. A James Beard Award nominee recently came over to raid my stacks of cookbooks, only to be disillusioned by the slice of homemade whole-wheat bread I proudly fed him (it admittedly resembled the texture of a football). “Are you sure you used the right yeast?” was his gentle feedback. Unfortunately, my beautiful bread-making days seem to have been tied to beginner’s luck, because now they all come out wildly unattractive and generally inedible. However, I like to think that if everything were patisserie-perfect, then I’d have less to laugh about.
Whether it’s in my skill set or not, there is nothing in the food world that I’m not sweet on learning about. Nothing. One of the perks of interviewing great chefs and foodies for Grub Street is that I get the chance to ask them anything I want. Mocha Frappuccino or steeped green tea? Describe your last Taco Bell binge. Do people do drugs in your bathroom? Ever burn toast? They usually respond well to me. I think it’s because, by now, I get chefs. I know the glossy daze in their eyes, like a toddler at the tail end of a tantrum, after exiting the all-consuming tunnel of their shift. I know to give them space, five minutes for some, a few hours for others, as they mentally transition from workhorse to human being. And even once they’ve changed gears into the very cool creatures they intrinsically are, I know that there are still some chefs who can’t veer far from restaurant talk, and others who will stop at no intellectual rampage to prove that they can. In the end, it’s a safe bet that they all just want to talk about bacon, sex, and themselves, anyway.
From the French-trained demigods to the tat’ed badass chicks to the infantile, alcoholic savants, I find myself emulating anything I can shake out of these culinary daredevils with their chipped-at personalities and tremendous talent. Floating in and out of restaurant openings and tasting tables, I extract sound bites, both highbrow and low, that tailor the way I look at food.
The über-purist chef, Michel Bras, from a little village in the French countryside, tells me that one of his favorite treats is an apple core, simply because it is always dismissed with such wasteful disdain. He makes me try one and it gets lodged in my throat, but I totally get his point and now look at broccoli stems and banana peels differently, too. Thomas Keller—the most pleasant and perhaps important chef in the country—admits he can’t walk past Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups at the grocery store without throwing them in his shopping cart. He’s probably just trying to humanize himself, but now I grab them, too, with glory instead of guilt. Grant Achatz, of Chicago’s Alinea fame, sings the splendor of a vegan Japanese chef in New York who’s “revolutionized the vegetable,” so I make a reservation for a table for one, walking away seventy-five dollars poorer but a pea shoot more evolved. Paul Liebrandt of Corton and the documentary Matter of Taste, and whose crystal blue eyes make me lose all concentration, argues that Marco Pierre White was the last of the rock star chefs, imploring me to buy White Heat right away. Gabrielle Hamilton prescribes Negronis for when life gets rough; Padma Lakshmi prevents hangovers with an “egg in a hole” before bed; and Ruth Reichl finds her Zen in cartons of Szechuan Chinese food while sitting silently on the couch. And so I do as they do. I do as they say. Call me a foodie follower. I’ve heard worse.
As I explore the likes of Cambodian num pang and avocado ice cream, popping into artisanal cheese shops and swanky whisky rooms, I am, by default, meeting a lot of men again. The funny thing is, when I go on dates now, most guys admit they’re nervous about making the reservation or ordering the right food in front of me. I try to explain that even though I’m uploading as much culinary information as I can into my brain, I still buy wine based on packaging, shiver at pig hearts, can’t stomach oysters, and hesitantly pronounce “pho” and “chicken paillard.” But they think I’m just trying to be disarming.
In the lobby of the Bowery Hotel, I get cozy with a Jared Leto lookalike who wears eyeliner and smells like a wet dog. When I stop returning his calls, because he’s just too out there, he leaves endless voice mails in which he simply chews food into the phone. He calls it gastro-poetry. Enter the once-famous child actor who is now a struggling film producer. I like him a lot, even though my gut says he’s hiding something (and trust me, it’s not residuals). Then he tells me he’s going fishing in upstate New York and ends up in rehab. At a coffee shop in Brooklyn, I meet a novelist whose books I’ve bought, and whom I can’t believe is flirting with me. For the next few weeks, we text profoundly and pornographically, but on the night I’m set to see him for an actual date, I come down with a miserable migraine. I cancel via e-mail and ten minutes later he writes back, “No second chances, sweetheart.” Asshole.
I don’t jump into bed with all these new guys, but I’m not knitting them sweaters either. In case of “gentleman callers,” my kitchen is always ready. I usually keep an onion, potato, and cumin quiche in the fridge, as well as a berry tart or something simple and sugary that stays fresh for a few days. This way, day or night, sweet or savory, G-rated or X-rated, I always have something to offer.
Against my better judgment and after months of kitchen-rat restraint, I even go on a blind date with another well-known chef named Alexi. It takes weeks before I agree to meet him, but after three close friends vouch for his solid character, I pop my head into his restaurant, wearing sunglasses and a hat, and notice him peacefully reading the New York Times and sipping a coffee. There’s no chaos, iPhone, publicist, or posse reverberating around him. I intuitively like his disposition, and tell our mutual friends to move forward with the matchmaking.
Alexi and I meet up on the first warm evening of spring, a Monday, his only night off, and sit outside for wine and a few flatbread pizzas. He looks like an Italian immigrant straight from Ellis Island, with translucent white skin, raven black hair, and a five o’clock shadow that could make a grown woman cry. He’s incredibly composed, much more intelligent than most of the sexy things I’m drawn to, and seriously committed to his critically adored cuisine. We have a wonderful conversation about the future of the New York City food scene, share a smoky carafe of red wine, and after kissing good night on a SoHo street corner, I get on the subway, hoping he asks me out again. “Alexi is yummy,” I text our mutual friend.
We spend a few more Mondays together. They each pass in a woozy haze, always consisting of one impossible restaurant reservation, two killer orgasms, and a three-o’clock-in-the-morning cab ride home with a smile on my face and thong in my clutch.
I don’t dare ask for more of his time. He likes that I know the drill—that I’m not expecting a date every Saturday night, that I don’t pester him for midweek dinners, movies, or spontaneous picnics in the park. Fortunately for him (less fortunately for me), I’ve been the other woman to a restaurant before.
On our fifth Monday, Alexi asks me to join him at a downtown, carnivorous hot spot. As we catch up on our week while holding hands across the table, I amaze myself at how I can actually keep up with most of his culinary musings. Had we met even a few weeks earlier, many of his interests would be way over my head. Pondering the menu, I mention that I won’t eat anything involving bone marrow or sweetbreads. “You know I’m still a culinary prude,” I say, hoping to sound cute rather than uncultured. In the same breath, I order the tripe. When the waiter walks away, Alexi says, “I’m shocked that you like tripe!” My answer? “Really, why? I love fish.”
When the dish comes, I know that I’ve embarrassed myself. The following day, I go to Eataly and ask the butcher what the hell I had forced myself to swallow. “Cow tummy,” he says with a grin.
The next week, Alexi changes things up a bit, and arranges for us to see a movie at a downtown film festival, suggesting that afterward we hit the opening night for the most talked-about restaurant of the year. What a hot date, and my editors at Grub Street will be so impressed! I shop all day long for the right outfit to wear on such a fabulous night, and end up buying a short, silky nude-colored dress from a high-end boutique in my neighborhood. It’s a bit provocative, but I’ve been working out so much at SoulCycle that I want to show off my legs. The salesperson whispers that she just sold the same dress to Maggie Gyllenhaal, my fashion hero, and this closes the deal without further dread over the price tag. A few hours later, I throw on scarlet red Louboutins and dry my hair to look long and windblown. Spring is in bloom and so am I.
The movie is unremarkable, but sitting so close to Alexi compensates for it all. Truthfully, I am wary about any real future together—food is not just his career, it’s his absolute airstream—yet I adore him and can say for sure that my inner fire is ablaze. The film ends around midnight, and even though I’m starving, all I want to do is skip dinner and slip out of our clothes. I hint at this, but he’s obviously excited about seeing his friend’s new restaurant. “Don’t you worry.” He winks. “Our night is just beginning.”
On the cab ride over, he mentions that we’re not dining alone, which I never even thought to ask about. We’ll be sitting with foodie royalty: a handful of elite chefs, restaurateurs, journalists, and sommeliers. “You know, like, ehhhveryone,” he says. Oh great, here we go with the obnoxious ehhhveryone … again.
I think he’s trying to impress me, knowing I’m growing my career in food writing and trying to infuse my world with as many knowledgeable people as possible, but he’s got it all wrong. This social structure is anathema to me. I have no interest in being on display as some popular chef’s arm candy. Not anymore, at least. But soon enough, we’re heading straight into the eye of the storm—the hard-core, cliquey, New York food “industry” scene.
I quickly reassure myself how far I’ve come. I think of all the meals I made at the El Royale, my New Year’s Eve feast, the endless grazing days at Eataly, the big-ticket interviews for my Grub Street byline, and the victorious Valentine’s Day moules. I even arm myself with an opening line, something fun I just learned from the popular food blogger Restaurant Girl: “Did you know tiramisu was originally called ‘a prostitute’s pick-me-up’ because of all the sugar and caffeine?” I’ll be okay.
We pull up to the restaurant just past midnight and I’m shocked at the mobs of people inside and out. “Can you feel the energy?” Alexi asks, paying the cab driver with a crisp bill. To be honest, I feel like puking. Hand in hand, with him leading the way, we make our way through the front door, past the crowds and to the corner VIP booth, which is spilling over with culinary somebodies, the same not-so-friendly faces that made me uncomfortable at food festivals with Chef.
My dress has no place in this anti-glam crowd, where almost everyone has chosen a life of food over everything else, especially fashion. It looks like I’ve tried way too hard, but there’s nothing I can do. I was supposed to be on a hot date … what do they want from me? When we get to the coveted corner table, it’s packed tight, and a few courses have already been served. I take the crammed seating as a blessing and hope that we can leave, maybe make some naked paninis at my place and be private. But my date asks everyone to move over for me: “You all know Alyssa, right?” He’s being pulled in a million different directions and wants me to be comfortable while he checks out the industrial equipment and reconnects with a decade of kitchen pals.
I wiggle myself into the table, accidentally flashing my underwear to the crowd. “Oops! At least I’m wearing some!” I tease. No one laughs but me. Everyone is looking down, clinging to their iPhones, frenetically tweeting about meat pies and plywood. “When did tweeting become the new chain-smoking?” I joke to the sommelier to my left. “Well, I think we all have a responsibility to share these high-level culinary experiences,” she replies, dead seriously. Oh, okay.
I try to remember that I’m the special one, but right now, I’m also the starving one, and I know I won’t find any inner glory until I’m nourished. I don’t care if it’s a Michelin-star chef or Mister Fucking Softee, someone needs to feed me. There’s nothing on the table except some critically acclaimed corn-bread, which a pastry chef and a food publicist are analyzing like it’s the secret to immortality. I grab the basket and pound two pieces.
It’s noisy and everyone is talking over me. Satiated at long last, I try to join another conversation, one about wineries in Tuscany … or is it Tuscans in wineries? I can’t really hear. I awkwardly interrupt and say that I’m vying for a press trip to Siena. No one looks up. At least with celebrities, they pretend to care. There’s some back and forth banter about a legendary restaurateur’s farm in Martha’s Vineyard. I actually know who they’re talking about, so I announce that I’m from Massachusetts and that my friend had her wedding right across the street from his property. An older woman responds, “Speaking of, Alyssa, I’m confused. Which chef are you with now?”
A year ago, I would have been too fragile to withstand a comment like that. But I take her crassness as jealousy and let it slide. Although her herb-encrusted dagger does stop me from trying to fit in with everyone—not because I feel bullied or bitter, but because I’m bored to death.
Before the plates of “ironic” fried chicken arrive, close to one o’clock in the morning, I discreetly tell Alexi, who has finally come back to the table, that I have a big day tomorrow and need to head home. I twist myself out of the booth and wave good-bye to the gourmands. He follows me outside, encouraging me to stay and apologizing for leaving me alone for so long. While changing out of my Louboutins and into the ballet flats I wisely stashed in my bag, I tell him not to worry, and I truly mean it. I am not mad at all. This scene is his home and he’s killed himself to get here. But for now, I’m cool with just writing about it.
As I walk away, through the streets of the Village, looking for fresh air and maybe a falafel, I am oddly unfazed by the experience of being ignored or insulted by the foodie mafia. I will always meet people who don’t like me, or don’t get me, who think I’m dressed like a high-class hooker or raised by wolves. But as all the women I’ve ever admired would say, “At least you’re interesting enough that someone gives a shit.” Which reminds me: There will always be people who think I’m not interesting enough at all.
Just down the block, I see a crowd of people in Washington Square Park. Even though it’s late, and the park can be a rough-and-tumble environment at night, I sense some good music and the reporter in me sails over. As I get closer, I hear “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay …” It’s one of my favorites. So I walk faster. I make my way through a crowd of forty or so, and see that in the middle of everything, there’s an old, soulful black man on the guitar, a weirdo white guy with an Afro and ripped overalls on the drums, and a gypsy-faced, songbird couple who are either rockers from the seventies or escapees from an asylum (or both).
Together they’re all jamming to a mixture of folk and funk, and it’s fabulous. I join the circle of yuppies, vagabonds, street-cart vendors, prostitutes, and perfect couples, and we’re all loudly singing along, “Sittin’ on the dock of bay, watching the tide roll away …!” When someone starts Smokey Robinson’s “My Girl,” an NYPD officer with ruddy cheeks and a big belly taps me on the shoulder and twirls me around and around, and for some reason, I think of Jean and I sing even louder. The crazy songfest is the most uplifting New York moment I’ve ever experienced, and suddenly, I am belting out “Here Comes the Sun,” by the Beatles, and sobbing. Forget the dinners, Twitters, Bellinis, bylines, and boys. This is life.
Eventually, I drag myself away. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning, and the moment couldn’t possibly get better. The entire cab ride home, quietly humming Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” because that’s what was being played when I left, I can’t stop wondering if these highly emotional experiences find me, or if I find them.
Lying in bed, I decide to stop seeing Alexi romantically, at least for now. He is not the warm washcloth on my face that I require from a relationship. And I think that part of me, maybe, believed that being with him provided a chance to prove that I could endure life with a chef. A second act. Because deep down, there will always be a sense that I failed so miserably the first time. But I have to grow up. If it’s redemption that I’m looking for, that’s something I need to resolve from within. And should I decide that I do want such a sweet and vicious life, thumping in narcissism, sleeplessness, and unspeakably good sex, I already know the white-smocked schmuck I want to live it with.
The next day my mother e-mails me, wanting a full recap on the date, as she always does: “So? How was it? Whatcha eat?”
I write back: “Mom, I ate the bear.”
