Apron Anxiety (25 page)

C
rudités
is such an uptight word, isn’t it? It’s like, the opposite of me in an appetizer. But that’s what I want to order, as long as we call it something else though. Cool?”

I am sitting at the bar of Jean-Georges’s exceptionally chic ABC Kitchen, in New York City, and acting batshit crazy.

Three weeks ago, I left Chef. I’m living in my parents’ Brooklyn loft, in the same spare, prison-white room I slept in the last time I had a bad breakup, but this time I’m sharing a bed with my sister, who’s also nursing a vile broken heart. I refuse to see any of my friends because I’m just too miserable to socialize, and all I want to do is compulsively go to restaurants (alone) and communicate with Chef.

“You’re
there
now? Weren’t you at Colicchio’s place just an hour ago?” he says, checking in on me for the third time today.

“Being at restaurants makes me miss you less.”

“I know what will make you miss me less … coming home!”

My split from Chef is not at all a clean break. Through e-mails, texts, and calls, we’re in nonstop contact. Sometimes we talk as if nothing has happened. “Hey u … will I like grilled fish with habanero?” I text. “No, sweetie, 2 spicy for my luv,” he responds, immediately. After a drink or two, of course, the
messages get increasingly angrier. I tell him he ruined everything; he says I abandoned him and our home. But our nights always end with sad and sincere admissions of guilt. I know I was impulsive about the wedding, refusing to listen, pushing us over the edge. And he deeply regrets the person he turned into during those last few months.

Still, I’ve made the choice to move on and I am trusting my instincts.

You would think, however, that after leaving my chef fiancé, I’d resent the restaurant world for a while. Not so. All I want to do is explore the “it” spots I’ve been reading about since leaving New York two years ago. It’s as if in transitioning from life with a chef to life alone, the New York restaurant scene is my halfway house. For solace, I turn to French brasseries, hyped noodle shops, dirty-spoon diners, and suspicious shawarma stands. I’ve become a savvier eater, but I’ve never been the type to keep a restaurant bucket list until now. As I cope with the collapse of us,
Zagat
is my Zoloft.

Beth and Jill don’t even know that I’m back, and I absolutely cannot stomach the pity of my family. More than ever, I refuse to explain myself to anybody. My grief is not for consumption. When my sister asks if I want to walk the Bridge, or get backrubs, or just quietly be near each other, I snap, “Why don’t you just worry about yourself!” When Liz at
People
asks if I want some work for extra cash, I ungraciously reply, “I cover food, not gossip.”

Instead, I walk for hours a day, restaurant hopping with the displeasure of my own company, finding my way to
New York
magazine’s “Best Bloody Mary” and
Eater’s
“Favorite Fish Taco,” continuing to blog about my experiences when I can find the energy. I use these lists as arrows, as I have no idea what else to do with myself, or where I belong. Almost every day I roam
around Mario Batali’s new Italian food mecca, Eataly, disappearing in its thick, fresh fettuccine aisles, rows of vinegar cartons and sardine cans, and bustling eating stations. I can’t walk past the
salumi e formaggi
table there without thinking about the mortadella sandwiches I’d make for Chef—and those early memories of us make me smile. But then I remember being fed my engagement cake by my sister, instead of him—and I push away my
mini dolci
in disgust.

At night, I despondently walk to other expensive hot spots, like Keith McNally’s Minetta Tavern, where it’s dimly lit and saloonlike, and everyone has letterpress business cards and bitters-based appertifs. I sit at the bar and order a Barolo, trying to read my book in the dark, oaky room. Sometimes I’ll order a small dish like roasted beets or veal carpaccio, just so I can eat to appear occupied, instead of baiting the looming, close-talking bachelors who apparently can’t resist a mysterious lush like myself. A little flirting might be healthy for me, but I can’t seem to hold a decent conversation. My mind is so fragmented.

Usually I’m sick of food by dinnertime and because I’m so off balance, my appetite is, again, underwhelming. I’m really going to these restaurants only to be part of something, to catch a wave. I like the sounds—from the clank of the glassware to the gossip at the bar. And the observations—the pulse of couples heading to the sack, or the doom of those heading to divorce. And the restaurant staff! I could eavesdrop on disgruntled bartenders and sexually confused servers for the rest of eternity.

One afternoon back at ABC Kitchen, on the ground floor of ABC Carpet & Home, where I once worked, I see my old boss. He’s a dashing Englishman who has been extraordinarily kind and generous to me and my family, even after I inconveniently quit the job just before a huge store event. Furthermore, a few weeks ago, he gave my mother a Moroccan rug
for a nice price. Now he’s spotted me from across the dining room and is coming over to say hello. I slap down twenty bucks and jet.

I am too tense for human interaction. My fists are clenched and my face is tight. And the most pathetic part is … that I know exactly what can make me feel better. A chunky tomato sauce with lots of fresh herbs, or a gingery fish baked in aluminum foil, or a pumpkin pie with a walnut topping, or a chocolate gâteau with strawberries around the border. Any of that would work, theoretically, if made by me.

All my cookbooks and kitchen equipment are stored smack dab in the middle of my parents’ loft, with a few Frette bed-sheets covering it all up, like a huge, high-thread-count casket. My family, who can find humor in the hardest situations, calls my sheet cake of crap “Moby,” because clumped together, its shape reminds them of a whale. They think Moby is a riot; I think it’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen. My livelihood is under there—my therapy, my career, and my memories of Chef. Yet I won’t lift the sheet. I suppose my self-punishment isn’t over yet. It’s been a month since I left Los Angeles, and I haven’t tied on an apron since.

My parents can see that I’m in a volatile state. They’ve been in New York for about ten years now, and my mother’s career in real estate has been extremely successful. They’re still too frugal to hail cabs or go to fancy restaurants; instead they enthusiastically (and quite lucratively) buy and flip country homes with their cash in the kitty. This weekend, they’re visiting their latest investment, an antique, post-and-beam barn, in Litchfield, Connecticut, because the plumbing needs work and I need space.

While they’re away and my sister is at her office, I stay home
with no restaurant excursions on the agenda. My body is extremely jumpy. I initiate a venomous e-mail exchange with Chef, as if for sport. I am the meanest I have ever been. I keep getting dressed and undressed with nowhere to go. I am drinking a Starbucks chai latte, which I can’t get down and I don’t remember purchasing. On the counter there’s a package of chocolate-covered graham crackers that I could have accidentally stolen. I’m dizzy and drooly and wondering if I might die. I think the word to describe me is “manic.” I weakly reach for my cell phone.

Asking for help in a direct way is strange territory for me. I don’t even know how to assemble the words, but I manage to call my sister at work and ask her if she could please come home, because I really need her. Before I can tell her it’s an emergency, she leaves her editorial meeting, hops in a taxi, finds me shivering in a fetal position in the master bedroom, and clothes me in my mother’s soft robe. My body has stopped its spasms, but my voice is shaky.

Rachel is a rock when I need her. I tell her I’m losing my mind, and she suggests that I’m just getting sick. We take my temperature and it’s 102 degrees, and in Rachel’s arms, I submit to the flu. She gives me two Tylenols, draws a tepid bath, and sits with me as I drift in and out of sleep. We decide not to tell my parents, because having the loft to ourselves is probably the best medicine. And I don’t tell Chef, because I need to break our vicious cycle before it breaks me.

After two days of agony, I’m starting to feel better. Except now I’m starving. My stomach growls are louder than my sniffles. And all I want is pizza. Rachel puts on her coat to fetch us a pie, but I stop her halfway out the door. “Wait,” I scream. “We should make our own.”

Because I’m just recovering and she’s just crafting her own cooking confidence, we agree to cheat a little on the preparation. Living in Brooklyn, we’re surrounded by delicious pizzerias, so we come up with a great idea. We’ll “borrow” some dough from the nearest pizza shop, and personalize it with our own sauce, cheese, and toppings. A genius idea, we think. Turns out, it’s not such an innovation. Sal and Val from Front Street Pizza hand over the dough and tell Rachel they sell it to customers all the time. She smiles and they throw in a quart of marinara, too. The whole thing comes to four bucks.

Together, we look for Mom’s rolling pin. Neither of us have a clue. Crap, we have to call Connecticut. Mom the Virgo tells us precisely where it is and asks permission for her and my dad to come home now. “No! Love you! Bye!” we scream, hanging up. Next, we try rolling out the dough on the counter, but it keeps springing back. It stubbornly won’t stretch. So we each grab an end and play tug-of-war, thinning it out just enough till it fills the large, rectangular baking sheet. We pinch the sides over the rim and put it aside.
Phew
.

I caramelize some onions, while Rachel shreds some fresh mozzarella and cheddar. We ladle the sauce, then the cheese, then the onions. We season with salt and fresh pepper. Over in the window boxes, where my mother grows flowers and herbs overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge, we find a handful of basil leaves. Then I sprinkle the whole thing lightly with olive oil. I feel a million times better just having an apron wrapped around my waist and my sister by my side. We slide the pizza in a hot oven, and after twenty minutes, just as I’m about to eat the countertop, our masterpiece is ready.
“Buon appetito!”
I say, digging in. The pizza is amazing. The crust is brown and firm; the cheese is melted evenly and gooey without being greasy. It
cuts clean, and the basil is woodsy and unwilted. Sal and Val would be so proud.

I ask Rach if there’s anything else fun we can do. “I can show you the guys I’m talking to on
Match.com
?” she says without any inhibition, knowing I’m no fan of online dating. I’m too drained to be disapproving, however, especially after she just put my pieces back together again. “That sounds perfect,” I say. We log in under my sister’s “LoveTheBeach” username, clicking on guys named “ChallahbackYo” and “MisterButtsky” and “WillIron4urMom.” My general argument against online dating is that when you live in a city like New York, it’s so easy to meet people. Why hide behind a computer when you can meet your soul mate on the C train? Also, I’ve always put a high premium on having a good story to tell—“meet-cute,” as they say in Hollywood. Falling in love on the Internet just feels so flat. But tonight, I understand the good fun of it all. Tonight, love is too serious to take seriously.

As we lie in bed, like the little girls we once were, I sense that together, we weathered the storms of our breakups. Scrolling to a guy with the enticing name Benito Bagel, I say, “Let’s look at
his
pics!” quickly acclimating to the lingo. I’m under the weather, but I can still sniff out a cute guy. My hunch is right. Benito appears to be handsome, smart, and funny. He’s
allegedly
6′2″, a lover of cheap eats, and a self-employed financial consultant. From the name, we decipher that he’s probably Jewish and Latin, a flavor combination as alluring to me as apricot and Brie. He also lives not far from us in Brooklyn Heights. I can’t find anything bad to say.

“I wonder if he’s as hot in real life!” I blurt out.

“Wait!” my sister says in shock. “For you?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Oh my God. Really? Do it, Lys! Do it!”

“The best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody, right?” I smirk. “And besides, I can’t keep going to restaurants alone.”