“Because,” his dad will say, “she might like it!”
And as I daydream, I realize I’m a lot like Autumn. I’m staring out the window, pondering a different life. However, unlike Autumn, I could open the door and step through it if I really wanted to, couldn’t I?
We can’t go home for the holidays because of our work schedules, but like we’ve done in years past, we book tickets to Pittsburgh for mid-January. And while Matt knows I’m discouraged with the state of my noncareer, he doesn’t know that I’m so discouraged that I’m planning on using this trip to secretly consider what it would be like if we lived there again.
We arrive at the Pittsburgh airport, and as I walk from the baggage claim area to my mom’s car, which is waiting for us curbside, the freezing wind blows right through the winter coat that had worked just fine in LA and comes to rest in my bones, where it will remain for the rest of the night.
Matt and I have our own traditions with our families our first night back at home, so while Matt and his parents eat chicken wings, pizza, and what they jokingly (and lovingly) refer to as “sweat sandwiches” (as the guy who makes them is known to work up quite a sweat no matter the time of year), Mom, Bruce, and I head to Grandma’s to pick her up and take her out for sushi.
Since my last visit, Grandma has cut sugar out of her diet because of her failing kidneys, and though Mom warns me that she’s lost a lot of weight and is teeny tiny now, I’m still not ready for the change. We pull into her driveway and within a minute, she is making her way toward the car, her thin legs emerging from below her wool coat like sticks.
After dinner, Mom drops me off at the Bookmans, where Matt and I usually stay when we’re both home. But once I’m inside the house that’s become so familiar to me over the past fifteen years, it hardly feels usual; Matt’s parents are in the process of selling and moving to a smaller loft space downtown. There’s hardly anything left in Matt’s bedroom apart from a bed, a desk, and an icy draft coming from one of the windows.
In the morning, Matt and I eat breakfast with his parents before heading over to my house in the afternoon, where my brother and Katherine have just gotten in. They’ve driven up from Charlotte to spend the weekend, and Mom has taken the opportunity to arrange for us to sit for professional family photos, something Bill and I haven’t done since we were kids and something that does create family unity in that Matt, me, Bill, and Katherine immediately become united against Mom because we can’t believe she’s actually making us do this.
That night, all of us, Grandma included, have dinner at the Bookmans. Matt’s dad builds a fire, Matt’s mom makes chicken Parmesan, Matt makes garlic bread, and my mom arrives with her classic Caesar salad. I do nothing more than clean a few mushrooms and pour red wine. And halfway through, I realize it’s the big holiday dinner I’d wanted all season long, with people talking over one another, dogs abounding, and my brother and Matt making obscure Fantasy Football references. By the end of the night, the color has returned to my face and the circulation to my feet.
The following day, my dad is planning to drive from Saegertown to take us kids to an early dinner. I haven’t seen him since the wedding four years ago, and then all of a sudden, there he is at Mom and Bruce’s door, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket as if it’s an alternate Sunday night in 1993 and he’s arrived to pick us up and return us to Saegertown. And before I can stop myself, the first words out of my mouth are, “Dad, you’re so fat!”
At the wedding, he had been a few months removed from heart valve replacement surgery and at least twenty to thirty pounds lighter. And as he didn’t completely reek of cigarettes that weekend, I guess I’d hoped that he’d not only quit, but that the major surgery had inspired him to start taking better care of himself.
But clearly that’s not the case—when I go to hug him, the smell of smoke is pervasive.
“Geez, Amy,” he says, laughing, “we can’t all be fit and trim Angelenos.”
“I’m sorry. You just—you don’t look healthy.”
“What do you want from me? You know my dad died at sixty-two, and look at me at sixty-three! I’m doing way better than him,” he says, and laughs again.
Matt’s at a hockey game with his dad, so dinner will be just the four of us, and since Dad curiously bought himself a yellow Mini Cooper for his sixtieth birthday, we opt to take Katherine’s Jeep. From my spot in the back, it’s uncomfortable seeing my brother in the driver’s seat and Dad in the passenger’s; it doesn’t suit him to just sit there, to not have his eyes firmly on the road and the wheel in front of him.
We head to one of Dad’s favorite pizza places, Beto’s, where they famously serve any toppings, even the cheese, uncooked. So, if it’s a cheese and pepperoni pizza you want, you get a hot slice of pizza topped off with cold, shredded mozzarella and cold pepperoni.
Dad took us here all the time as kids, but I haven’t been in years and am fully prepared not to enjoy the two squares with extra cheese I order, especially as I see that they’re served to me on a Styrofoam plate. But honestly, it’s not bad. The bottom layer of cheese ends up melting because of the residual heat, and I find the mixture of textures and temperatures bizarrely pleasing.
Dad orders four slices with extra cheese and pepperoni as well as a full pizza to go, which he’ll bring back with him to Saegertown. But I’m not sure what’s more disappointing: the idea of Dad eating an entire Beto’s pizza himself, the ensuing conversation, or the nasty cough he displays throughout the meal.
After mostly talking to Billy about some of his old Saegertown classmates and, yes, ex-wrestling opponents, Dad turns to me. “So what’s going on? You have an agent now?”
I’d recently mentioned this news to him over e-mail.
“Yeah, I do.”
“And is he from the William Morris Agency?” (My dad enjoys the fact that there is a talent agency with his name.)
“No. She is not.”
“But isn’t the William Morris Agency, by virtue of its name, the best? Shouldn’t you ask to switch?”
At which point, my brother jumps in. “She’s working on a memoir, Dad. So, we all have to be on our best behavior from now on.”
“Oh God, remind me not to tell Dolly. You know, she’s not doing well. I doubt she’ll make it through the year.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” I ask.
“She can hardly breathe and she’s basically blind.”
The topic of my potential book doesn’t surface again.
We do, however, discuss Dad’s new online chess “clan,” the Chessperados.
After dinner, we head back to Mom and Bruce’s. Dad comes inside too, though he never makes it past the foyer. Mom greets him there and they talk shop for a bit, about the current state of medicine and Mom’s struggle to get used to electronic records. It’s always both odd and reassuring to see them standing side by side chatting—Mom with her arms crossed and Dad with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders subtly slumped.
We say our good-byes. I give Dad an awkward hug, and in the most serious voice I can muster, I tell him to take care of himself.
A few days later, Matt and I arrive back in Los Angeles on a late flight. By the time we retrieve our car at the Crowne Plaza hotel’s long-term parking and drive home, it’s eleven p.m., which of course feels like two a.m. We’re hungry but too tired to do anything about it. I open my suitcase only to retrieve my toothbrush. I brush my teeth and crawl into bed. Compared to Matt’s childhood mattress we’d spent the past five nights on, ours feels like something you might get at the Four Seasons.
In the morning, we wake up early and starved, but there’s nothing to be had for breakfast—no cereal, milk, or even bread for toast. The nearby store doesn’t open until seven. I search the pantry and realize that we have maple syrup, and that if we substitute half-and-half for milk, we can have pancakes.
And when I relay this information to Matt, he offers to make them.
“Sure,” I say, already ba
ck in bed. “If you insist.”
My first-ever culinary hero, Kenny Shopsin, has a chapter in his cookbook (Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin) dedicated to pancakes, in which he explains that if you heat the griddle properly beforehand, and if the griddle is well-oiled, and if you pay attention, not undercooking or overcooking the pancake, “you could use boxed pancake mix or Aunt Jemima frozen pancake batter, and your pancakes would turn out just as good as mine.” (A few sentences later, he then admits that he actually uses Aunt Jemima frozen pancake batter at his restaurant.) In other words, good pancakes are all about how you handle the batter, not the batter itself.
On that early morning back in Los Angeles, I’m reminded of this while eating the ones Matt has cooked quite perfectly.
Pittsburgh is a beautiful city, which, for better or worse, is responsible for much of my constitution. But after our recent trip, I can’t say I’m ready to pick up and move there; I can’t say it would be a solution to my career problems or that life there would be any easier.
All I can say for sure is that for the moment, it feels really good to be home.
Truth be told, if we’re talking pancakes, I prefer savory ones. Matt and I love to have these shrimp and scallion pancakes for dinner alongside a salad of mixed greens and diced avocado tossed with store-bought ginger and soy sauce vinaigrette.
KOREAN-STYLE SHRIMP AND SCALLION PANCAKES
Makes 8 to 10 pancakes
For the pancakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil or another neutral oil, plus more for the pan
1 bunch scallions, dark and pale green parts only, cut into 3-inch pieces
1 pound peeled shrimp, chopped into 1-inch pieces (depending on the exact size of the shrimp, each one is chopped into 2 or 3 pieces)
1 small jalapeño, sliced into very thin rounds
For the dipping sauce:
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
A few pinches of Korean red pepper (or Italian crushed red pepper)
To make the pancakes:
In a large bowl, mix the flour, eggs, and oil with 1 cup water until a smooth batter is formed. Stir in the scallions and shrimp. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Place a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat and thinly coat the bottom with oil. Once the oil is hot and lightly smoking, use a slotted spoon to scoop out as many 4-inch-in-diameter pancakes as you can. (The slotted spoon is important here, as you want just enough batter to hold the pancake together.)
With the bottom side of the pancakes cooking, use a fork (to protect your fingers) to lay one or two of the jalapeño rounds on top of each pancake. (You may not end up using the entire jalapeño.)
Cook until the bottom is browned, about 3 minutes, then flip and cook for another 3 minutes, occasionally pressing down on each pancake with the spatula, which helps to make sure you don’t get any pancakes with uncooked batter in the middle.
Repeat with the remaining batter, adding additional oil halfway through if needed. (You may want to place the finished pancakes in an ovenproof dish and throw them in a 275°F oven just to keep them warm.)
To make the dipping sauce:
In a small bowl, mix together the vinegar, soy sauce, and red pepper. Serve the dipping sauce alongside the pancakes.
Chapter 29
Our Many Lives
Friends of friends have a one-bedroom apartment in Paris, which they occasionally rent out to people they know for the extremely reasonable price of $400/week. Back in September, Matt and I did the math. If we bought our tickets six months in advance and I used the frequent flyer miles I’ve had saved up for years, we could afford to go for two solid weeks.
And so, at the end of March, almost six months to the day from my thirtieth birthday, we board a nonstop flight from LAX to Charles de Gaulle. We’re going to Paris! Is there a better sentence in the world? Or a better feeling than that of the beginning of a vacation? Of leaving your regular life behind, of becoming someone else—someone a little more cultured, a little more Parisian—for a bit?
It’s a six p.m. flight that arrives in Paris at two-thirty p.m. the following day, though of course we’re still on Pacific Standard Time, so it feels like four a.m. We’re tired, but I really want to take public transportation from the airport to our apartment, which, in my previous travels, I always found to be a great introduction to the city. We take the RER train into Paris, but instead of switching metro lines and getting off at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, we decide to get off at Saint-Michel. On the map, it looks close enough and we figure it will be nice to walk a bit. And it is. It’s sublime. The sheer history of the city hits you right away with its architecture, although our excitement begins to wane about fifteen minutes into the walk (as we’re doing it avec two suitcases on rollers and two large duffel bags).
The place we’re renting is located in the 6th arrondissement, on Rue Guisarde, a street so tiny it’s more of a passageway. It’s an attic apartment reachable via five flights of the oldest, most narrow spiral stairs I’ve ever seen. The landing in front of the front door is barely big enough for Matt, me, and our two suitcases, but when we open it, it’s love at first sight. The 345-square-foot one-bedroom apartment is both charming and modern, with ancient wooden rafters along the ceilings and views of rooftops from almost every window.
We drop off our luggage and immediately head back out. We pick up a pair of ham and cheese crêpes and do a small grocery run. But by seven p.m., Paris-time, I can’t keep my eyes open. I know I should stay up longer, but I’ve been dealing with a recurring case of insomnia for the past few months—some nights finding myself not able to fall asleep until five in the morning—and so when that feeling I’ve been longing for, that straightforward sense of falling asleep naturally and without a racing heartbeat, comes, it’s irresistible. I take it. (Of course, I also wake up at two a.m. local time, ready for breakfast.)
Our first few days are a blur of unpasteurized double-cream cheeses, wine, crêpes sucrées, booking dinner reservations for later in the trip, and long, meandering walks to museums.
And by the end of our first week, I’ve come down with a specific brand of nausea. All of a sudden, my body wants nothing to do with butter, cream, or cheese, aka the building blocks of French cuisine. When it first hits me, dry toast and tea are the only things I want, though the following day, avocado, rice, and hot sauce sound appealing. We seek out a Korean restaurant in our neighborhood, where I happily eat bibimbap with lots of chili paste mixed in.
Unfortunately, the next night we have dinner reservations—which we’d made the previous week—at Les Papilles, a very French restaurant that came highly recommended. It’s a place where you’re not given a menu. You simply show up and are served that night’s specific three courses. This sounded awesome last week, but now it seems much less so. But Matt is really excited, and I know that if we cancel, we most likely won’t be able to get a table another night.
So I put on my boots and we circle down the five flights that spit us out onto Rue Guisarde. It’s chilly and slightly raining, and our route takes us through the Luxembourg Gardens. It’s so Parisian and beautiful that by the time we arrive at the restaurant, I almost feel like eating. It’s a tiny place (though every Paris restaurant seems tiny compared to our American standards), and the same man who took our reservation last week walks us to our seats. Once seated, he explains that they serve wine by the bottle only, and whatever we don’t drink, he kindly says, he can cork and we can take home to enjoy. I know we should choose a red, but a crisp, citrusy white sounds like a cure-all to me, and so from the wall to our right, we have this kind Parisian gentleman help us choose a white wine that will go with the night’s menu.
I take a sip, and it seems to work. I think I’ll be OK.
Our first course is beautiful. The waiter serves us two wide shallow bowls with crisp lard
ons, golden croutons, and chopped asparagus steamed just to al dente resting in the middle. He then sets down a soup tureen filled with a creamy kelly-green broth and ladles it into our bowls. Though I know that everything is cooked to perfection, the aroma is that of butter, cream, and bacon, and I’m not even tempted to taste it. Matt, on the other hand, goes back for seconds.
When a different waiter comes to take away our plates, he must see the relief on my face. Yes, please take away the stunning bowl of soup! “You don’t like?” he asks in English.
“No, I did,” I say, nodding, unconvincingly.
“We loved it,” Matt says. “Parfait.” (Matt and I are both the type of people who hate to make others—particularly strangers—feel uncomfortable. When Matt is handed a sample of something at the grocery store, I always laugh at his over-the-top response: a thumbs-up coupled with, “I’m going to shop around but I’ll definitely swing back and pick this up on the way out.”)
In between courses, the warmth and coziness of the restaurant starts to feel stifling. I ask Matt to hand me his phone so that I can pretend to take a call outside just in order to breathe in the cold fresh air for a bit.
The next course is even prettier. It arrives in individual-sized oval copper pots. And when the lid is lifted away, we discover a crispy-skinned chicken breast and leg topped with a few sprigs of thyme. Underneath are more perfectly handled vegetables and al dente ziti in a pale green pesto-cream sauce.
Pasta and chicken sound OK, but the sauce is so rich that I can’t eat more than a few bites. I transfer some of my portion to Matt’s copper pot so that this time the waiter is less suspicious when he collects our dishes.
Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!) Page 20
