The Measure of My Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris

by Jackie Kai Ellis

  VI

  BEFORE I LEFT FOR PARIS, THERE WAS A PERIOD IN MY life when planning “who was bringing the potato salad” to a potluck was a much more frequent topic of conversation than it was after. From the time I was born right up to the decision not to have children, I had prepared for the practicalities of having a family by watching new mothers and learning from them. I quietly collected information about the best strollers and the most effective anti-stretch mark creams. I didn’t plan to quit my work; I wanted to keep my career and juggle both, as my mother had.

  When most of my friends were swirling in storms of diapers, temper tantrums, play dates, and backyard barbecues, I had been right there with them, secretly planning which cookies to pack in my children’s lunches so they had the most bargaining power on the playground. Then when my life shifted in a childless direction, there was an empty space amid everything else that had remained unchanged. Day-to-day life went on as usual, but the soundless space beside what had filled it before was like the tiny pause after a heartbeat.

  G and I drove out to a party at a friend’s house in a suburb just like the one I had planned to settle down in with my husband and children. I brought with me a large platter of homemade cookies and bars and was greeted by a friendly group of newlyweds and newly adults. We stood in the kitchen of a townhouse in a sprawling network of townhouses, each with their own white garage and little square patch of garden. I began chatting with a man in his mid-twenties with dark hair and an accent shared by his twin brother, with virtually the same clear eyes but a more sedate demeanor.

  After telling him I was a designer, I asked him about himself. He beamed and explained that he was days away from moving to Montreal to be with a woman he barely knew, but loved instantly. I was enraptured by the monologue he had been waiting to unload, and as his willing recipient, listened as he went on to detail his plan to buy a charming vineyard in the countryside of Spain and begin his life as a winemaker.

  I ate every delicious morsel of his life, filling in the parts he left open with my own dreamy details. Obviously the vineyard had a farmhouse that could be renovated, and though it would be cold in the winters, there were large seventeenth-century hearths to keep warm by and cozy quilts found at local markets. My imagination followed him so deep into this fantasy, that I could see the rows of vines outside of the kitchen window and feel the dog pawing for scraps at my feet.

  It was so utopian—the kind of story that you’d only see in movies or read in books. The kind of life that “other people” have, not someone I could know and certainly not me…but here was one of those people, standing in front of me. I was in awe of what he planned to accomplish, and of the bravery it took.

  When I relayed his story to our friends afterward, excited, they rolled their eyes, looking back and forth at each other and shaking their heads.

  “Oh, you mean E…Yeah, he’s a character all right. It’s different every month with him. He falls in love with someone new, picks up, moves, and just starts doing the exact same work. One month he’s in love with a naturopath in Calgary, the next a cheese maker in the Okanagan, and next is Montreal.”

  Perhaps it was too good to be true after all. Even still, there was something in E’s story that lingered on my mind. There was a fearlessness, a thirst that I caught that was so familiar to me. My subconscious recognized a hidden part of me, and thousands of thoughts began to rush into my mind. “So what if E is flaky and impulsive? I’m not. I don’t have to go the extreme of following naturopaths around the country. I know how to be practical; I’ve been practical for a long time! Why can’t I travel, live in a different country, or indulge myself in a passion, too?” Maybe there were more ways to live life beyond buying a home, having kids, and discussing potato salads.

  On the car ride home, I started thinking aloud to G.

  “What are we working for? What are we doing with our lives? What is this all for if we don’t live? Why don’t we just take a year and live in Europe? Buy a vineyard? Or travel? Or do something…anything else?” Since he allowed me to carry on for so long, I knew he was curious, too.

  And then I took out the one weapon I had at my disposal. “I mean, if I have to live without children, I want all the benefits of it, too. All the money we would have spent on kids, I want to spend on us. I want to travel, I want to do all the things that people with kids can’t do.”

  G finally spoke. “OK, let’s think about this. Let’s take six months and think about whether this is something we really want to do, and what we would do if we did.”

  That was more than enough for me, and it was the only time I brought up the topic of children again.

  VII

  I THOUGHT ABOUT LIFE AND WHAT I WANTED OUT OF IT. I broke down everything I assumed my life was supposed to be, examined each part, and redefined it all, one block at a time. I asked myself what I truly valued. I asked myself what I wanted my legacy to be, what kind of person I would be proud to say I was, what I would be proud to say I accomplished. I considered what I would be willing to sacrifice and what I had been told was important but in the end really wasn’t.

  For months, I wrote enormous lists of things I loved, wanted, didn’t want, and couldn’t live without, and began whittling it down. In the end, there was just one item.

  On my deathbed, it would fill me with joy to know that I was brave enough to live life’s greatest potential. The only thing I would regret would be not having done that.

  POTATO SALAD

  After I began travel writing, I went to one of the most magical places in Northern British Columbia, a place called Bella Coola. We saw savage and untouched wilderness with hardy wildflowers growing between mammoth granite slabs when we went heli-hiking in the mountains, and we boated in sage-colored glacial waters to hidden hot springs along the rocky shores. When I came home, I created this potato salad, inspired by the whole roasted salmon dinners and potato salads made with new potatoes just plucked from the earth that morning.

  FOR THE PICKLED SHALLOTS

  1 tbsp (15 ml) sugar

  ¼ cup (60 ml) white wine vinegar

  2 tbsp (30 ml) water

  1 medium shallot, thinly sliced in rounds

  Place the thinly sliced shallots in a medium heat-proof bowl. In a small pot, bring the sugar, vinegar, and water to a boil. Allow the sugar to dissolve. Pour the hot liquid on the shallots and let rest at room temperature for at least 1 hour. Can be made ahead and kept refrigerated for a week.

  FOR THE ROASTED POTATOES

  2 lb (900 g) small red-skinned potatoes, halved or quartered

  4 cloves garlic, peeled

  3 tbsp (45 ml) olive oil

  ¾ tsp (3.75 ml) sea salt

  ½ tsp (2.5 ml) pepper

  2 large sprigs of thyme

  5–6 strips of lemon peel

  Preheat the oven to 450°F.

  Mix all of the ingredients on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper. Place in the oven and roast for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft when pierced with a knife, and golden and caramelized on the edges. Remove and discard the lemon peel and thyme after roasting, as these were only for aromatic purposes.

  FOR THE AIOLI

  1 clove garlic, finely grated

  ½ tsp (2.5 ml) sea salt

  ¼ tsp (1.25 ml) pepper

  1 egg yolk

  ½ tsp (2.5 ml) Dijon mustard

  Juice and zest of 1 lemon

  ¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil

  In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients except the oil. Slowly add the oil in a thin stream while whisking, and continue to whisk until the mixture begins to thicken and lighten. The dressing should not be entirely emulsified; it should still be thin enough to drizzle. Can be made up to 2 hours ahead of time and kept refrigerated.

  TO ASSEMBLE THE SALAD

  ½ cup (125 ml) smoky candied salmon, broken into small chunks

  ⅓ cup (75 ml) Italian parsley leaves

  ⅓ cup (75 ml) celery leaves


  1 celery stalk, cut into a small dice

  6 radishes, sliced thinly

  Place potatoes on a plate or in a bowl. Top with the pickled shallots, candied salmon, parsley, celery leaves, celery, and radishes. Drizzle aioli on the salad right before serving and mix if desired.

  A NOTE ON MEASUREMENTS: I’ve left this recipe mostly in volume measurements as this is a recipe for home, and it is flexible enough that the measurements do not need to be so precise.

  SERVES 4–6 AS A SIDE DISH OR 6–8 AT A POTLUCK.

  FARMERS’ MARKET, VANCOUVER

  {2008}

  I STILL THINK THAT ONE OF THE PLEASANTEST OF ALL EMOTIONS IS TO KNOW

  that I, I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few, that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish,

  TO SUSTAIN THEM TRULY AGAINST THE HUNGERS OF THE WORLD.

  M. F. K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me,

  “The Measure of My Powers”

  THERE’S SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN A PERSON WHEN hunger and hope are fused together. I think “obsessed” would be the appropriate word. And that I was.

  For others it could have been dancing, world history, maybe even model airplanes, but it was food that I fixated on. I needed it. Not in the way we all need it, as sustenance, but as a life raft in the middle of an ocean of depression with nothing else surrounding me except empty water and the empty sky above it. I clung to it because it was the only hope that I might find shore.

  Depressed, I existed in a thick shadow where everything was deadened. I was perpetually trapped in that one moment during winter when the sun has just set and everything seems that much more lifeless. Most of the time, I couldn’t feel, and when I could, it hurt and I hated it more. But occasionally I caught the scent of a roasting chicken or a bush of bristly rosemary in a garden warmed from the sun, and I would drift along with it for a delicious moment.

  The scent of fresh basil or ripe tomatoes and the grassy vines they clung to, seeing bright yellow zucchini with wilted white petals hanging from their ends, the feel of soft fennel fronds like peacock feathers, the smell of garlicky sauces reducing or hot chorizo sautéed with onions—these all made my body respond. I felt something and I wanted to feel it again.

  Touch, memory, and spice—these all began to revive me at a cellular level. Each dish I cooked was another stroke of the paddle, and in time I spotted a speck on the horizon that spurred me to paddle faster and harder. And as I paddled farther, what was once a tiny speck became the outline of a city. With every course, I floated closer to the living.

  I

  MARKETS FLOODED ME WITH LIFE. THEIR COLORFUL produce, the growth in each season on display, vendors selling flowers relaxed in full bloom, little pots of demi-glace, imported cheeses, and pecan shortbread that melted in my mouth. Around Easter, the local charcuterie would post fluorescent reminders to preorder hams, and I fantasized about baking them with honey and grainy mustard or brushing the top with a sticky, sweet pineapple-soy glaze, allowing the crust to caramelize and crystallize into a meaty lacquer box.

  I would walk past each brightly colored stall, dawdling under the pretense of “grocery shopping” but secretly playing hooky from work, concocting imaginary meals with cans of smoky peppers in adobo sauce, white onions, cilantro, and masa flour, or sniffing varieties of Italian oregano like little green pearls still on their stems, or bright green olive oils, and tasting the slow progression of a tomato sauce in my mind.

  I watched old movies about food, like Big Night and Mostly Martha, while I scoured blogs and websites in different languages for obscure recipes. I took on one recipe and then the next, madly working my way through countless books. My shelves were full of Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Martha Stewart, Maida Heatter, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Julia Child, Pierre Hermé, Dorie Greenspan, and Patricia Wells. I took books out from the library like when I was a child. I cooked from Deborah Madison’s vegetarian tome, got an Italian education from Marcella Hazan, and read books on canning, making jam, and growing food, poring over everything I could about those topics. I carried in my purse books by Michael Pollan and Margaret Visser, biographies on Jacques Pépin, and The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis. But most importantly, it was M. F. K. Fisher who fed me stories that made me laugh, dream, wonder, and remember again what it felt like to be alive.

  I searched for the perfect everything, from pound cakes to roasts, sour cherries to pork bellies. I was insatiable, and when I had consumed every bit of information that books and the internet could provide, I saved for weekend courses at local cooking schools. With textbooks in hand, I was both challenged and lulled to sleep as I read, cradling their weight in my lap before bedtime.

  In the quiet church of my own kitchen, I cooked with the intensity of prayer as G looked on, uninterested. He didn’t care much about food, but that didn’t stop me. And when I shared what my hands had made, I saw that my friends and family tasted joy in my pies and passion in the glazes on my cakes. Although their hungers were different than mine, I understood them all the same and it gave me much pleasure to satisfy them, too.

  I knew, though, that they didn’t fully understand how urgently I was tied to food, and I was always aware of that strange separation. It was faint, and if you didn’t know it was there, you might not think to ask. But I noticed it when I spoke of chocolate and the fine nuances in it: fruity, smoky, red or green. They could taste the flavors, but we did not taste the same thing. I would look longingly into their faces, searching their expressions and hoping to recognize myself in them, but I never did. I accepted that I never would, but I wasn’t sad; it was enough for me just to know I’d had a hand in feeding them in any way at all.

  II

  “I’M NOT SURE YOU SHOULD BE BAKING ANYMORE,” G SAID to me one evening.

  “What? Why?” I shook my head in shock and disbelief. I thought I had misheard.

  “It’s just expensive. We can’t eat it all, and you’re just giving it all away.” It was true. I was giving away layer cakes, muffins, cookies, and biscotti to anyone who would still agree to take them, their waistlines growing with my curiosity.

  But how could I go about giving up something that was my life raft, something so much a part of me? My best friend, B, looked at me with concern in her glacial blue eyes. “But it makes you so happy. How could you stop?” I didn’t know either.

  I tumbled the dilemma around in my mind for weeks. I needed to find a solution. If it was the cost that G was uncomfortable with, then it shouldn’t be a problem if I paid for it. But how would I find the money? My personal budget wouldn’t allow it. If I could find a way to sell the pastries, it would pay for my exploration…Then I had it: I could start a home bakery, selling at farmers’ markets. G couldn’t disagree, so I began, knowing I didn’t know where to begin.

  I Googled everything, from “how to start a home-based bakery” to “how to sell at farmers’ markets.” I called markets for information on how to apply, which led me to city requirements on running a food-based business. I took a step wherever I saw one: a food-safe class, creating menus around what I was allowed to sell according to the government health board, applying at smaller markets on the outskirts of the city to gain more credibility so I could be considered for the larger markets within the city.

  G agreed to lend me $2,000 from our personal accounts to buy the required tents, plates, and equipment, and eventually, it seemed I had a little business. I named it Yummy Baked Goods. I designed my logo and business cards, and I made cookies and squares and cakes. I felt as if I was awake again.

  In the weeks leading up to my first market, I often stayed up all night. I wanted this to work and everything needed to be perfect. I planned the display, designed the signage and packaging, and tested and retested my recipes. Only one detail was missing: I hadn’t found the right apron in all of my scouring around town. It had to be perfect: elegant, nostalgic, reminding you of a warm hug from your mom, but still fashionable enough not to look too
matronly.

  So I decided to sew my own. I found a pattern for an apron similar enough to the one I visualized. I doctored it so it would have fuller pleats and a rustic, romantic bow. I borrowed my mom’s sewing machine, picked out a dusty rose-colored linen and thread to match, and with slightly rusty sewing skills, I worked on the apron each night until the sun rose the following morning. When it was finished and ironed, I finally felt ready.

  The days leading up to my first market were about the same as each one following it for the next few years, except I got faster and more efficient as time went on. I would prepare doughs and caramels during the week, designing during the day and doing my prep at night. On Saturdays before the Sunday market, I would bake all day and all night, dipping, filling, and preparing everything for the next morning. In the wee hours of the night, I would carefully iron my tablecloths and my apron, print my labels, and pack up my car with tents twice my size, sandbags, signs, and a little cash box full of change.

  Once I found my place in the rows of stalls, I set up my tent and the tables just so with clean white cloths. I would line the table with long baking trays, shiny with parchment paper laid on top and sweets carefully presented on them.

  Some of my favorites were the spicy, chewy ginger molasses squares, a tart lemon blueberry bar, macadamia nuts coated in a thick vanilla bean caramel on a shortbread crust, oatmeal raisin cookies with salted caramel cinnamon buttercream, and of course my chocolate chip cookie dipped in dark chocolate, sandwiching a thick homemade marshmallow. If you microwaved it for a few seconds, the whole thing would melt and settle into itself and taste like a decadent s’more.