Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!)

by Morris, Amelia

  “I dunno. Maybe let’s eat some breakfast first.”

  In the late afternoon, we pour ourselves some sparkling wine. And after some more prodding from Matt, and despite knowing my dad—that he’s the opposite of Matt’s parents, that he’s your classic know-it-all downer—I’m still excited enough that I cave.

  “Put it on speaker!” Matt says from across the room.

  I do, and when my dad picks up, he sounds genuinely happy to hear from me, “Oh, Amy! I was just thinking about you!”

  I feel encouraged. I launch right in. “I have some good news.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I sold my book proposal.”

  “You sold your book proposal? Oh my God. I thought you were going to tell me you finally finished reading the second book of Game of Thrones. You haven’t, have you?”

  “No.”

  “HBO released the trailer for season three. I sent you the link, right? I was hoping you would have finished book three by now. It’s just, look, I applaud HBO for their efforts, but they cannot—they simply cannot—capture everything that happens in the books. Take Daenerys for example. Her storyline is…” And he’s off and running.

  Matt is meanwhile frowning and motioning for me to take the phone off speaker. I top my glass with more sparkling wine and head outside, listening to his thoughts on where the show has gone wrong.

  You don’t know this when you set out to achieve something. (Or, at least, you don’t want to know this.) But once you achieve it—and I think those who have summited Mount Everest and made Olympic teams would agree with me—you start to realize that life really is about the doing as opposed to the results. At the very least, it’s the way we spend the majority of our time. On Thanksgiving, this equates to being in the kitchen with Matt, my dog, music, and perhaps the occasional halftime update from Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels. It’s about the quiet satisfaction that comes from having done the work that no one really acknowledges, but at the same time no one can take away.

  And while it seems to be true that publication very well may not change your life or solve your problems, I can tell you this. The promise of publication may cause you to drink to excess.

  By the time I hang up with my dad, it’s not even six o’clock and I’ve finished off my second glass of sparkling wine and moved on to my third. At which point, our friend and neighbor comes over with his dog. The three of us congregate outside underneath our carport, where we can finish the bottle while our dogs play in the adjacent backyard. It’s February in Los Angeles, so the weather is perfectly chilled. All you need is a sweater and a light jacket. Without hesitation, we move on to a bottle of red wine. It feels like college. We don’t worry about dinner. We don’t worry about having to wake up for work in the morning. At least for the night, we don’t worry about anything.

  Chapter 32

  2013

  In January, Matt changes our health insurance plan so we can have better options were I to become pregnant. In other words, for the first time in our lives, we’re not avoiding pregnancy. That said, it’s not a great time to get pregnant. We’ve just begun to get paid for doing what we want to be doing. By now, Matt’s day job description has totally morphed so that now most of his responsibilities include shooting and directing ads and videos for his agency’s clients, which is great. But these shoots often require him to travel across the country for long stretches of the week. And of course, I can’t imagine that standing on my feet for eight hours a day and lifting heavy ceramics will be very comfortable if I’m six or seven months pregnant. Plus, I’m still teaching one day a week; PBS’s online counterpart, PBS Digital Studios, is interested in adding the cooking videos Matt and I have been making to their network; and I need to write a book.

  But I’m thirty-one and have heard too many stories about couples just a few years older than me struggling to conceive. Right now may not be an ideal time to start a family, but I can see that there probably never will be.

  On the first Sunday of May, I wake up and am almost positive that I’m pregnant. My body is sore and simply, oddly, no longer feels like mine alone.

  That same day, in a few hours, in fact, my mom is set to arrive at the airport, but before I go to pick her up, Matt runs out to buy a pregnancy test. Overly responsible girl that I am (future child, please take note), it happens to be my first pregnancy test ever, and when I take it, it instantly reads as positive.

  “It says to wait for three minutes, but I think I’m pregnant,” I say to Matt, showing him the double line.

  “Oh, you’re pregnant,” he says, looking at it. “You’re definitely pregnant.”

  My mom is an obsessive needlepointer. She always has a major project going on, whether it’s a pillow or a purse or a Christmas stocking. My brother and I have shared many laughs over one project in particular: a poster-size Babar the Elephant rug/wall hanging she completed for either his or my first baby almost five years ago now. You would think that maybe she would have stored it away until one of us was actually expecting a child, but no. Instead, for the past five years, it has sat strangely draped over an antique chair in her and Bruce’s living room. It’s so haphazardly situated it’s as if she picked it up from the finishers, came home, and, unable to put away all of her hard work, decided to rest it on the chair for the time being. But Babar and his friends have remained there, awkwardly and proudly, ever since.

  In short, I know my mom will be thrilled when I tell her our news. But Matt and I decide it will be much more fun if we can catch her reaction on camera. My mom is nothing if not a good sport, and even though she’s been up since five o’clock in the morning and has just flown across country, when I tell her we’re going to shoot a quick Bon Appétempt video back at home, she’s up for it. And when I tell her I’m pregnant on camera? Well, she’s very excited. For me, for Matt, for herself, and of course, for Babar.

  But just a few days after my mom leaves, I experience some uncharacteristic bleeding. When I call my doctor, she tells me to come in as soon as possible.

  I do, and while I’m relieved when she confirms that the fetus is still there, she isn’t very reassuring. “There’s about a fifty-fifty chance of making it to twelve weeks,” she says, at which point miscarriages are rare. “And until then, I want you to take it easy. No walking your dog, no yoga. No major stress.”

  “But yoga is a huge stress reliever for me.”

  She just shakes her head and wags her finger.

  I had just chosen this doctor at the beginning of the year, and I hadn’t liked her very much before she’d told me all of this scary, seemingly overly cautious information. But now I definitely want a second opinion.

  As soon as I get home, I call my dad and tell him everything in a couple of breathless sentences, leaving no space for celebration—not wanting to celebrate if this baby isn’t going to stick around.

  Dad practically guffaws at what my doctor has told me before launching into three very normal reasons why women might bleed early in pregnancy. And then, most reassuringly of all, he says, “Look, if a woman’s going to miscarry, she’s going to miscarry. But is walking your dog or going to yoga going to cause it? Absolutely not. See, this is one of the many problems with medicine today. Doctors are so scared of being sued. So they’re extra cautious. Babies are packed in there, and apart from exposing them to radiation or drinking the water in Saegertown, there’s not much you can do to hurt them. Oh, and don’t use your microwave. Got that? No radiation, no Saegertown water, and no microwaves.”

  He’s being his classically weird, opinionated self, and I know that as always, I should take his advice—gynecological or otherwise—with a grain of salt, but his calm, confident dismissal of my doctor’s orders is exactly what I needed to hear and exactly how I wanted to hear it.

  By my twelfth week, I have a new doctor and a confirmation that the baby is doing just fine. Plus, in those five weeks, my dad and I speak more times than we have in the past six months combi
ned.

  While I was ready to know that Matt and I were physiologically capable of making a baby, it seems another thing entirely to act as a host to a life growing inside my body.

  I mourn the loss of the daily glass of wine or beer that usually accompanied me while I prepped dinner, as well as the loss of my regular appetite, embracing saltines, oatmeal, and pickles instead.

  At the same time, the idea of motherhood suddenly looms large. I feel a strong urge to find a therapist in order to work out all of my emotional shortcomings so as to not hand them down to this helpless thing that is going to completely depend on me.

  And when I casually mention to Matt that I think Mavis has put on some weight and that we should be more careful with the amount of treats we give her, he looks at me like I’m crazy. “She’s definitely not overweight,” he says, picking her up as if to protect her from me. “You know, I don’t want you projecting your own weird weight issues onto our dog.”

  As he says it, a deluge of fear rushes to my head. Oh my God. What if I try to micro-manage my teenage child’s weight? Oh my God. What if I’m going to be one of those horrible narcissist parents who can’t separate their child from themselves and who will therefore judge their child as harshly as they judge themselves and the kid grows up to be as critical of those he or she loves as I am?

  It’s August, and we have a major ant problem. I’m stuck in the house waiting for the exterminator to arrive between our allotted window of eleven and two. But it’s OK, because I have writing to do as well as a bag of dried pinto beans and a basket of multicolored cherry tomatoes.

  It’s the peak of summer, and I cannot read one more article on what to do with all of the tomatoes my garden has been producing. For one, despite having ample room for a garden, I haven’t gone further in the planning process than to occasionally consider starting one. And second, all the articles tell me to slow-roast my glut of tomatoes—something I’ve always wanted to do yet simply haven’t. But after having come across the image of a bowl of glistening beans topped with puckered, shiny slow-roasted cherry tomatoes in Deborah Madison’s cookbook Vegetable Literacy, I decide I must change this. And with the knowledge that I would be housebound today, I picked up the necessary tomatoes and pinto beans last night.

  Ms. Madison’s recipe calls for black beans and a pressure cooker. But I prefer pinto and wouldn’t use a pressure cooker even if I owned one. What I’ve got is a small space of countertop that hasn’t been overrun with ants. I want to opposite-of-pressure cook. I want to slowly simmer some humble beans in even humbler water for hours until they soften and their skins crack.

  I start by slicing an onion into thin half-circles, pausing to remove an ant that has found its way up my forearm. I spend a few minutes checking my body for others. Seemingly free and clear, I continue chopping three cloves of garlic until they’re almost minced. I have some thick-cut bacon in the refrigerator, and though the recipe doesn’t call for it, I feel like it would be a huge mistake not to include a few slices. Using kitchen shears, I scissor three strips of the bacon over my four-quart enameled cast-iron pot. I turn the heat to medium, letting the bacon render its fat and become nice and golden. I add seven cups of water, the pinto beans, the onion, garlic, cumin, two jalapeños, a bit of cinnamon, and a few large pinches of salt. I stir and breathe in the aroma of the earthy cumin and smoky bacon. I turn up the heat and wait for it to come to a boil. While I wait, I clean up, rinsing about ten to twenty ants down the drain in the process. Once it’s at a boil, I turn the heat back down to a simmer and put the lid on top. The only thing that separates me from delicious, spicy, pinto beans is time.

  While it’s simmering, the exterminator arrives.

  I briefly tell him about our problem, and he goes outside to inspect the situation. After about twenty minutes, he knocks on the door. “Wanna come check out what I found?”

  I don’t. But he’s looking at me expectantly, almost proudly. “Sure,” I say, and follow him outside.

  “Yeah, there’s a big colony right here.” He points to a spot in the ground near the front entrance. “Also, found a coupla black widows.”

  “Oh.”

  “And over here,” he says, now from underneath the deck, “I found a whole slew of ’em lining up and entering the house through this crack. Aaaand, there’s another black widow.” He looks at me for a response.

  I nod.

  “You guys get a lot of skunks up here too, I bet, huh?”

  I nod again. “Yep.” It’s like watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares—everything you never wanted to see about what goes on in a commercial kitchen, except it’s our own backyard.

  Back inside, I sign some paperwork, and Ron tells me the kitchen should be ant-free in two to three days. “The product does work,” he says on his way out. “You just have to give it some time.”

  Alone again, I check on my beans and give them a stir before starting, at long last, on my first batch of slow-roasted tomatoes. I set my oven to 300°F. I toss the multicolored orbs in a bowl with a bit of olive oil and sea salt before spreading them in a single layer in a shallow baking dish. I place them in the oven and take a look at the clock. The recipe tells me to give them an hour, maybe more.

  With my tomatoes roasting, my beans simmering, and the ants in-the-process-of vacating, I’m a relatively free woman. It’s only one o’clock in the afternoon and dinner is basically taken care of.

  In mid-August, Matt and I are at our second-trimester screening, where they do an ultrasound and take a close look at the baby to try to see if everything’s progressing normally. This is where they will officially tell us the sex. At our last ultrasound, the doctor had told us she was a girl, but then he had followed that up by saying he was only about seventy percent sure.

  As it turns out, he was seventy percent wrong. The technician tells us it’s definitely a boy and shows us the evidence to prove it. We’re both surprised. But what surprises me most is the sense of relief I feel.

  In the ten weeks between ultrasound appointments, Matt and I had traveled to North Carolina to join in on my family’s beach vacation. And it’s only now, as I lay on my back with the technician showing me all of the various parts to our baby boy that I realize how closely I’d been tracking my relationship with my mom—both how hard I am on her as well as the ways in which I want to parent differently.

  On our first day there, my pediatrician mother’s back and shoulders are already extremely tan. But by midweek, she is reddish-brown, the color of a crisp piece of bacon. If she isn’t at the beach, she has found herself a sunny spot on one of the house’s decks. “You know, I’m going to take a photo of you and send it to your dermatologist,” I threaten at one point.

  “Oh, c’mon. I’m wearing fifteen!” she says, referring to her sunscreen’s SPF.

  If she’s inside, she’s never without a can of Diet Coke, her latest needlepoint project or crossword puzzle, and a blaring television. And I can’t help but think how ironic it is how much time she spends talking about and arranging these familial gatherings and then how little of her seems present once we’re all there.

  And without even realizing it, I have begun to fear something more specific than motherhood. I’ve begun to fear having a daughter just like myself—a daughter so quick to criticize and slow to hug, a daughter who might someday point out my own bad habits, which come to think of are fairly similar to my mother’s. At home, Matt and I eat the majority of our meals while watching television, and when we’re done eating, with the TV still on, I turn to my phone and play digital Scrabble for the rest of the night, or if it’s my turn to clean up, I turn on a podcast—basically avoiding single-tasking at all costs.

  But now that I know it’s a boy, I immediately feel less pressure. Because certainly (or so I’ve convinced myself) our little boy will take after Matt—openhearted, loving, optimistic, and quick to hug.

  When Matt comes home from work, I scoop out the pinto beans into two wide, shallow bowls. I top them w
ith the glistening cherry tomatoes, a couple spoonfuls of sour cream, a drizzle of hot sauce, and a bit of chopped cilantro. Along the side of the bowl, I tuck in a pair of folded tortillas. I bring them upstairs, where we eat at the coffee table while watching The US Open. Tonight, it’s the young American, Isner, versus the wily Frenchman, Monfils. It’s an exciting match. After winning the first two sets, Isner drops the third to Monfils. Though at the moment, the excitement is stemming from the crowd itself. Despite the New York City location, the mostly American crowd has been won over by Monfils’s exuberant personality and has begun to chant, “Monfils! Monfils!”

  And in a fairly unorthodox move, Isner has opted to take a very long bathroom break. While we wait for him to return, the commentators talk about the crowd. They say they’ve never seen anything like it. One of them reports that he saw Isner on his way to the locker room and that he looked extremely rattled.

  “Poor Isner,” I say. “To be cheered against in your own country.”

  Matt shrugs. “Eh, they just want a good game.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the US Open. It’s rude!”

  I look over at him and notice that he’s stopped short of finishing his first bowl of beans, which is rare for someone who almost always has seconds.

  “You didn’t like it?” I ask.

  “Eh,” he says, shrugging. “It’s a lot of beans.”

  I know it’s a lot of beans. It’s a lot of delicious beans! I want to say, but Matt’s attention is back on the television. Isner has returned from his epic bathroom break and Matt has joined the crowd in chanting, “Monfils! Monfils!”

  “Oh, c’mon. It’s the US Open! How would you feel if you were Isner?”

  But Matt just looks at me with a wide grin and continues to cheer, “Monfils! Monfils!”

  By October, I’m six months into my pregnancy. The baby has received good reports at every doctor’s appointment, and talking with my dad about it is no longer reassuring. For one, he’s old school and doesn’t believe in ultrasounds. He doesn’t think I should get a flu shot. He doesn’t think I should get a Tdap vaccine. He basically doesn’t think I should be doing much of anything that’s standard practice nowadays. He’s also mentioned three times how he’s going to take a train out to LA in early January to meet the baby. I don’t give the idea too much thought until this third mention, when I realize he’s being serious. “Would you stay with us?” I ask him, trying to sound nonchalant.