Chapter 30
Be Careful When Hammering Your Life into Shape
I’d gone to Whole Foods planning to pick up ingredients for linguine and clams, but as I stand there shivering in the produce department on an unseasonably cold, gray day by Los Angeles standards, I decide that what I’d really like is Manhattan clam chowder, something I’ve never made before.
Though it’s 2012, I still don’t have a smartphone; I can’t Google a recipe. But what I do have is a husband at work with access to the Internet. I call Matt and ask him to please find a Manhattan clam chowder recipe online and read off the ingredients to me. He kindly agrees but with the proviso that he’s at work and is not available for a million follow-up questions. (He knows me too well.)
I buy the majority of what he tells me to: littleneck clams (as the smaller ones, manilas, aren’t available), bacon, celery, onion, white wine, a can of tomatoes. I skip the chorizo and instead grab some halibut. Why? Because I’m feeling confident. I’m making soup. And soups, I’ve discovered in the short history of my cooking life, are hard to mess up. Why halibut specifically? Because it seems like a nice, if not familiar-sounding, fish that will hold up in a soup.
I go about my day off as I normally do, and then, at five o’clock, I pour myself a glass of white wine, turn on some music, and begin making my inaugural chowder. The recipe doesn’t mention anything about potatoes, but I have some on hand and, well, who doesn’t like potatoes in their clam chowder? I put them in a pot of water and bring them to a simmer, waiting until they’re just fork-tender. I drain them and allow them to cool for a bit while I get the bacon ready to fry.
As I’m frying the bacon, I remember this amazing bacon potato hash I once made. Impulsively, I slice the potatoes with their skin still somewhat attached and toss them in the bacon fat.
Unfortunately, while my heart is in the right place (a starchy vegetable cooked in animal fat), within a few minutes, it seems that I may have overloaded the pan with potatoes, because the flesh doesn’t seem to be crisping up the way I’d like. Plus, the skin has come off some of the potatoes and adhered itself to the pan. And worst of all, I realize that since I’m going to throw these potatoes in the soup, it doesn’t matter if they crisp up because it’s not like they’re going to stay crisp while suspended in broth.
The recipe tells me to remove the cooked bacon from the pan and to use the bacon fat to cook some minced garlic, to which I’m supposed to add white wine and water in order to steam open the clams. But the potato skin is so stuck to the pan that I end up using a slotted spoon to remove the bacon to one plate and the potatoes to another before I pour the leftover grease into another pan entirely.
In the fresh pan, I sauté the garlic in the bacon fat and add the white wine, water, and finally the batch of littleneck clams. Once the clams have steamed open, I pull them out one by one and place them into a bowl. As for the liquid, I’m supposed to strain this off into another bowl. At this point, there is the smallest bit of counter space left to work on, and as I’m straining the hot liquid, I pour too slowly and lose at least a cup to the side of the pan, the counter, and—bonus!—the floor. Next, I avoid that section of the floor as I remove the clam meat from the shells, chop them up, and reserve them in another bowl.
I take a time-out to clean up, during which Matt comes home from work.
“Wow, it smells great!”
“Don’t come in here!”
“Why?”
“What time is it?”
“Uhm, about six-thirty.”
“Six-thirty!”
I resentfully move on to a new pan—this time an enameled cast-iron stockpot—and melt some butter and add the onion and celery. (This is where I would have added the chorizo I didn’t buy.) I cook the onion until it’s translucent, then add a bit of flour. Next up is the clam broth, which I must bring to a simmer. Then, in goes my large can of tomatoes, sugar, pepper flakes, and thyme. Here, I’m supposed to cover and cook at a low simmer until the broth is flavorful, about twenty to thirty minutes, adding the reserved bacon and clams at the very end, but then I remember I have that stupid halibut in the refrigerator that I haven’t done anything with yet.
I bring the broth to a simmer and add the halibut, which I’ve chopped into bite-size pieces. This seems to work, as the halibut is clearly cooking, only it has brought the level of the liquid to within an inch of the top of the pot. If I want to add the potatoes and clams to this, I’m definitely going to have to transfer the soup to a bigger stockpot.
As I do so, the red broth leaves its splattery mark. I’d love to add the emptied pot to the sink, but alas there’s no room. Finally, I add the potatoes and chopped clams to the newer, larger pot, and, with a sense of great defeat, announce that dinner is ready.
Oh, but there’s one stipulation. “I work tomorrow,” I tell Matt, “and since this was such a nightmare to make, this needs to last us for two meals.”
Five months later, at the beginning of September, I send my agent the latest draft of my book proposal. I’m proud of myself, not for having done the work but because I feel like I haven’t rushed the process, that I’ve applied her notes, revised it from top to bottom, given it room to breathe, and then revised it one more time.
What has perhaps helped me be patient is that Matt and I have had a great summer. I’ve gotten a job teaching a writing class one day a week through a private Los Angeles writing school, which allows me to change my schedule at Heath so that I only have to be there three days a week. And because of the videos we’ve made together for Bon Appétempt, Matt has not only stumbled into freelance work as a shooter/director, but his job at the PR firm has evolved such that he is now shooting and directing web spots for his agency’s major clients. In other words, he is getting to do the work he’s always wanted to do. But the most exciting change of all is that in June, we bought a small house in Echo Park, a windy, hilly neighborhood in east Los Angeles, and almost immediately followed it up with the acquisition of a small dog we named Mavis.
So that by September, the life I’ve always wanted seems to be coming into focus. By September, I begin to think that maybe that brand of T-shirts Matt’s dad sports on occasion is right: Life is good.
But when my agent gets back to me via phone, it becomes clear that we’re not even remotely close to being on the same page—no pun intended, as a pun would imply an air of lightheartedness, and by the end of our hour-long conversation, I’m the opposite of lighthearted. I’m both defeated and worked up. I’m also in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, as right before she called, I was about to leave for a hike with Mavis.
But now it’s almost eleven o’clock. It’s hot and the sun is high in the sky. Mavis, who is still very much a puppy, doesn’t hike well in the heat. But she’s pawing at my legs, seemingly asking to go with me, so against my better judgment, I grab her and head for Griffith Park anyway.
Why do I want to write this book? The answer to which I’m supposed to think about rings in my head as I walk.
Why do I want to write this book?
I know what I’m supposed to say. I should quote Annie Dillard or Rilke about how if I’m really a writer, then that’s just what writers do. We write! And if the recognition comes, the recognition comes.
But what I want to say—No, what I want to shout is: I’ll tell you why I want to write this book! Because I want to have a book—out there in the world and not just on my computer.
Because, at the end of the day, I’m still struggling to drink my own Kool-Aid. Because, though I tell myself differently, part of me still believes that my job as a shop girl does define me. Because part of me believes, despite what Anne Lamott tells me, that publishing this book will bring me happiness, or at the very least, a certain level of respect and/or recognition from those people who have made me feel small, who have made me feel undeserving and dispensable: from the customers at the store to my coworkers and bosses (present and past) to my dad and stepmom. Specifically, I want my dad to hear the news and think: Hmmm… maybe I underestimated Amy. Hmmm… maybe I should’ve paid a little more attention to her when she was a kid. Likewise, I want my stepmom to be worried: Oh, shit. She’s writing a memoir? Maybe I picked the wrong eleven-year-old girl to have told that she wouldn’t amount to anything.
Sometimes I find myself envying Mavis because she seems the very opposite of tortured. She plays. She eats. She searches for morsels of food on the kitchen floor. And on walks, if it’s too hot outside, she finds herself a shady patch and sits down, sometimes only five minutes in. When she does this, I usually respond by jumping up and down, trying to get her going again. “C’mon, Mavis! Let’s go! Weeee! This is fun!” And sometimes it works.
But today, after my disappointing phone conversation, I don’t even bother trying. Today, I scoop all eleven pounds of her up into my arms and say, “You know what? I don’t blame you.”
When I first started Bon Appétempt, though it was a side project and something I wanted to do for fun, I also felt adamant about sticking to the structure of beginning each post with their version, which was always an image of the completed recipe as it appeared perfectly and beautifully in a magazine or cookbook. This was then followed up by my version, which was always, of course, a very flawed image.
But after the first year, this structure began to stifle me. I would find photo-less recipes I wanted to try. Yet not wanting to break the template I created, I wouldn’t. Eventually, though, I gave in.
And once I did, I was off and running. I attempted Julia Child’s photo-less recipe for mayonnaise. I re-created the butterscotch budino from one of my favorite restaurants. I let Matt do a guest post on the roasted pumpkin seeds he makes every Halloween. And after a weekend in Big Sur, we simply posted a series of photos from our trip—there was no recipe at all.
So, two and a half years into the life of the blog, when I came across Swedish pop star Robyn’s music video for her song “Call Your Girlfriend,” in which she mesmerizingly dances with abandon in a giant warehouse space in one long take while wearing floral leggings with a faux-fur long-sleeved jacket for the entire length of the song, I not only know that I want to re-create it for the blog, but I know that I can—that it technically falls under the realm of a bon appétempt.
But wanting to shoot a music video of me dancing for three solid minutes in floral leggings in at least somewhat of a choreographed fashion, I soon learned, is a very different experience from actually doing so. When my friends and I began the shoot, I felt like an idiot wearing extremely unflattering clothing and too much eye makeup. But then, the more takes we did and the more my friends screamed at me to “go crazy!” the more I let go.
And ironically, not only does this become the second most popular post of my food blog’s lifetime, but also, of all the things I’ve accomplished (not too much, but you know, I did graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins, have had a few small publications to my name, married a nice fellow, etc.), it was this video that pushed my dad to e-mail me that he was proud of me—words I’d learned not to expect from him; words I thought were reserved solely for my brother, and even then, only within the confines of the sport of wrestling.
Sometime shortly after that September phone call with my agent, it begins to dawn on me that I’ve seemingly forgotten about Bon Appétempt’s expectation-less, founded-in-fun origins. Back then, the kitchen and the blog were safe places for me to explore, to play, and to fail if need be. I wasn’t trying to prove anything or impress anyone.
And now what? It’s a few years later, and just because my soup didn’t come together as easily as I thought it might, I become upset and beat myself up about it? It reminds me of my obsessive dieting in college—putting such severe expectations on myself, not being able to live up to them, and then hating myself for it.
In the next couple of months, I start to come to terms with the fact that I cannot will this book to happen any more than I can will Mavis to walk when she doesn’t want to, any more than I can will certain recipes to come together flawlessly and effortlessly.
I can work hard. And I can do my best. And sometimes that’s when I’m happiest, when I have a project and I know I’m putting in the necessary time and effort. But that’s just one facet of who I am. There’s another part of me that needs more space to properly thrive, that needs room to spread out—to do things I want to do just because I want to do them, and, if necessary, to look stupid in the process. I need to reserve the right to make a simple meal that doesn’t even require a recipe, one that isn’t for the blog or because Matt requested it, but merely because that’s what I’m hungry for.
This is one of the first meals I made without a recipe to guide me. It’s a staple meal of one of my coworkers who hails from Panama. And so, with nothing more than her description of how she sautés some garlic and onion, then adds rice, beans, and coconut milk, and lets it all simmer together in the pan until the rice is cooked, I went home and made it. She told me to serve it with avocado slices and lime, but Matt and I usually also add salsa and often wrap everything in a tortilla. Sour cream doesn’t hurt either.
RICE AND BLACK BEANS IN COCONUT MILK WITH AVOCADO
Serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil (or, if you have it, coconut oil works really well here)
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt, plus more for seasoning
Freshly ground black pepper
1 (13.5-ounce) can light coconut milk
¼ cup water
1 heaping cup white basmati rice (or another kind of white rice of your choosing)
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
8 corn tortillas
2 avocados
1 to 2 limes
Sour cream
Your favorite store-bought salsa
Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes more. Add a few pinches of salt and pepper.
Preheat the oven to 250°F.
Add the coconut milk, water, rice, and beans. While it’s coming to a boil, add 1 teaspoon salt, the cumin, and a few more pinches of pepper. Once it’s boiling, cover the pan with a lid, bring the heat down to a gentle simmer, and simmer for 16 to 18 minutes (if you’re using a type of rice other than white basmati, check the package directions as the simmering time may vary). After it has cooked, let it rest with the heat off and lid on for another 10 minutes.
While the rice is resting, wrap your tortillas in foil and warm them in the oven.
Slice the avocados in half and remove and discard the pits. With each avocado half skin-side down on a cutting board, slice the flesh into strips, and using a spoon, scoop out the slices into a bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover with the juice of half a lime. Set aside.
Just before serving, juice the remaining half of the lime and pour over the rice. Stir to distribute and season with salt and pepper. Serve the rice and beans with the tortillas, avocado slices, extra lime slices, sour cream, and salsa. (Matt likes to wrap everything up in his tortilla, whereas I like to have it there on the side to scoop up bites.)