The Unspeakable (22 page)

For what it's worth, I do not once recall ever seeing my mother do anything with garlic, shallots, or cooking wine (though did anyone use these in the pre-epicurean 1970s and early 1980s?). She never shopped at a fish market or had any kind of in-depth conversation with a butcher about cuts of meat. She never owned a fancy food processor or had any opinions about cast-iron versus stainless-steel cookware. And though that's surely not the only reason I had so little interest in accruing tips or learning to cook so much as one dish (she could have worked in the Whole Foods sushi department and I probably still would have shown no inclination to be her sous chef, preferring to stay in the den watching
Three's Company
until being summoned to set the dinner table), I can't help but think that her lack of enthusiasm had a significant trickle-down effect.

Especially since I was anything but immune to my mother's influence in other areas. As uninspired a cook as she was, she loved buying crockery and other tableware and held a personal belief that any shortcomings in the meal itself could be obscured if not totally overcome by serving the food in beautiful painted ceramic bowls. This is a philosophy I have carried with me. Guests in my home cannot be guaranteed a fine meal (though it will usually be decent, since my husband will usually prepare it), but they will get elegant place settings and flattering overhead lighting. If they bring a side dish in a container that I find unattractively utilitarian, I will quietly transfer it to one of my dozens of rustic-chic ironstone serving plates before we sit down.

In fairness, my mother had a vastly more sophisticated palate than her own mother. My grandmother's idea of salad was either a wedge of iceberg lettuce slathered with ranch dressing or overripe banana slices suspended in Jell-O along with canned pineapple rings and mini-marshmallows and then topped with Cool Whip. My grandmother made sandwiches with white bread (crusts removed) and spread Smucker's grape jelly on toast, which I delighted in when we visited and would then beg for at home. This was an affront to my mother, who asserted her cultural superiority by buying only whole-grain bread and Bonne Maman preserves.

As unreceptive as my brother and I were to such gestures, I'd long thought that my father must have surely had some appreciation for my mother's culinary instincts—if not the cooking itself then at least her efforts to improve upon the gravy-soaked meat and vacuum-sealed produce they'd both been raised on. But in my late thirties, I was set straight. I had occasion then to travel with my father to his hometown in Southern Illinois (eighty miles from my mother's hometown in even-farther-to-the-south Southern Illinois), where we stayed with an old flame with whom he was now having some version of a long-distance relationship. (Somehow I'd been wheedled into giving an unpaid lecture at the local community college; also, my father was being honored, along with a former Harlem Globetrotter, as a distinguished alumnus of his high school.) I was warned that dinner might well knock my socks off.

“She's a fabulous cook,” my father told me repeatedly. “Just terrific.”

When I was served a casserole made from ingredients I can only recall now as something approximating elbow macaroni, cream-of-mushroom soup, and Lipton onion soup mix, two things occurred to me, both revelatory. The first was that my longtime assumption that my father would have been slightly less unhappy with my mother if she'd been a fine cook was completely wrong. My mother could have been the Barefoot Contessa and he would have complained that the celery rémoulade wasn't as good as regular mayonnaise. The second was that this casserole was one of the best things I'd ever tasted. I loved it. Had I been a different person, for instance someone who could cook, I would have asked for the recipe.

Not that I could have tried it at home. My husband is an inveterately healthy eater—irritatingly so at times. (When he is hungry he eats
oranges
. More specifically, tiny little clementines whose peels he leaves all over the house as if molting his skin.) If I came home with elbow macaroni he'd assume it was to be used for a craft project, which says a lot because crafts are another thing I don't do. His mother is a fine cook who bakes from scratch and has in-depth conversations with the butcher. When my husband goes food shopping he comes back with fresh produce and enough ingredients for several meals. Unlike me, he does not panic the moment he sets foot in the store, only to toss a container of overpriced berries into the basket before taking refuge in the nonfood aisles, where the displays of toilet paper and dishwashing detergents have a strangely calming effect. My husband does much of the cooking in our house and it is, for the most part, tasty and healthful. Though he is not a foodie, he likes to try new recipes, especially dishes from Southeast Asia and even Africa. Unlike me, he gets out the spices and measures them ahead of time so they're ready when he needs them. Unlike me, he reads the recipe all the way through before starting.

Once or twice my husband has suggested we take a cooking class together. From my reaction, you would think he'd proposed that we volunteer to pick up trash alongside the highway. I told him it sounded miserable. It would be pointless. My mind would wander within the first five minutes of the class. He'd be there measuring flour with the precision of a crystal meth cook and developing little in-jokes with other students and I'd be daydreaming about going home and watching
Downton Abbey
. More likely, I'd be dreaming of
living
at Downton Abbey. Flu epidemics and abysmal women's rights aside, I often think living in a Jacobethan mansion in the early twentieth century and having my meals cooked and served by professionals would suit me just fine. That's pretty preposterous, however. In reality it would be a nightmare. In reality I would be so intimidated by the servants and so awkward in their presence that the relief of not having to cook would be dwarfed by the pressure to make polite conversation. I'd end up taking dinner in my bedroom every night, like a grieving widow or an unseemly visiting artist. No, the ideal scenario for me is probably a meals-on-wheels kind of situation. I can only look forward to the day when I am a lonely, shriveled shut-in receiving regular visits from some grim-faced volunteer who comes regularly to my door with a cream-of-mushroom casserole garnished with Lipton onion soup mix.
1

*   *   *

As depressing as it is to imagine my final years spent eating casseroles from an E-Z Foil pan, there's also something perversely comforting about it. Maybe because no matter how far you branch out from the family tree, palate turns out to be as heritable a trait as eye color. Or maybe it's just because Lipton onion soup mix, as a garnish as well as a seasoning, is highly underrated. Besides, I'll tell you what's highly overrated: the idea of going outside your comfort zone. And not just when it comes to food.

“The comfort zone is a dangerous place, a dark abyss where anyone who remains there for too long loses his or herself entirely … staying within your comfort zone is giving up on life.”

I read this recently in a “news” item entitled “Twenty Things That Mentally Strong People Don't Do.” (Clicking on such headlines is another thing mentally strong people don't do.) The item, which appeared in an online publication that dubbed itself “The Voice of Generation Y,” was essentially a list of psychologically unhealthy habits, including “dwelling in the past,” “avoiding change,” and “being misunderstood.” As a practitioner of all of the above, I was initially alarmed. Then I realized that as a member of Generation X none of it applied to me, since for us dwelling in the past and being misunderstood have never been seen as signs of mental weakness as much as reasons to start an underground magazine.

Please understand that I'm not opposed to hard work. I know that, aside from winning the lottery, there is no such thing as success without hard work—though we mustn't forget that winning the lottery requires playing the lottery, which requires paying regular visits to bodegas or 7-Elevens, which is its own kind of immiserating task. But having lived most of my life firmly within the confines of a very specific set of interests and abilities, I can tell you that the comfort zone has many upsides. It may be associated with sloth and cowardice and any number of paralyzing, irrational phobias. It may be a dark abyss where misunderstood people lie around in fading recliners listening to outdated music. But I'm convinced that, when handled responsibly, the comfort zone can be as useful and productive as a well-oiled industrial zone. I am convinced that excellence comes not from overcoming limitations but from embracing them. At least that's what I'd say if I were delivering a TED Talk. I'd never say such a douchy thing in private conversation.

I once interviewed the actress Diane Keaton about her status as a “style icon.” If you follow such things, you probably know that the menswear that helped make Keaton famous in
Annie Hall
has evolved over the decades into a wardrobe that has branded her, if not exactly a trendsetter, at least an unapologetic marcher to her own sartorial drummer. Keaton wears a lot of wide cinched belts and oversized jackets. She never wears evening gowns, not even at the Oscars, but she often wears elbow-length gloves—“It's just a little something extra,” she said to me. When I asked her what inspired these choices she told me that everything she wears is an effort to compensate for some flaw. She said she started wearing big jackets to draw attention away from her narrow shoulders. She said she had “no waist” so she faked one with wide, dramatic belts.

In other words, Keaton only wears clothes that she feels she looks good in. And because these turn out to be very particular clothes, she ends up adhering to the same basic style no matter what the occasion. She's been anointed a “style icon” not because she is especially daring but because she has a limited range. It is within the confines of the comfort zone that she has found greatness.

What I take from this is that the path of least resistance has a lot going for it. The comfort zone isn't where you lose yourself. It's where you find yourself. Though I probably shouldn't admit this, the activities and pursuits in which I've achieved any measure of success are, without exception, activities and pursuits that came easily to me from the beginning—for instance, writing and speaking in the English language (not much else). Just about everything I started off doing badly I've remained bad at because I never really bothered to work at it.

This is an unflattering, even un-American thing to cop to. Of the many unattractive qualities I reveal about myself in this book, I suspect few if any will ruffle as many feathers as that one. If you are an adult of relatively sound mind and body, cavalier statements about not wanting to do anything difficult are basically tantamount to saying you're not going to bathe because it's such a pain to wait around for the tub to fill. But, while I'm not proud of the scale of my ineptitude, the truth is that I've gotten along pretty nicely in life avoiding things I don't naturally do well. And, believe me, these things are legion. These things are at least 90 percent of things in the world. Here are just a few:

1. Do math above a tenth-grade level

2. Program radio station presets in the car

3. Ski/snowboard/surf/hang glide/rock climb/spelunk/anything involving bungee cord

4. Get through Chaucer

5. Cook (as we've established)

6. Wink (True; I physically cannot wink.)

As embarrassed as I am by these deficiencies, they are not my greatest shame. My greatest shame comes from the vast vault of things I do not
want
to do. Many of these things fall into what most people would consider the category of fun or at least potentially relaxing. Again, this list is truncated in the extreme. I could probably fill every page of this book with nothing but examples in this vein. But here are a few that come immediately to mind:

1. Play games (sports, board games, or otherwise)

2. Ski/snowboard/surf/hang glide/rock climb/spelunk/anything involving bungee cord

3. Go shopping

4. Go on vacations

5. Massages

6. Meal preparation of any kind

Note the crossover here. I lack both aptitude and enthusiasm for food, games, and leisure travel. Much can be said about this and much of it is totally obvious. My standing as a nonfoodie is merely a gateway into myriad other areas of noninterest. Clearly, I'm a killjoy. Clearly, I have problems with pleasure, with
letting go.
Surely, I'm an unhappy person. These are legitimate criticisms. I do not enjoy most activities that are commonly labeled “fun.” Moreover, I'm weary of “happiness,” both as a word and as a concept. Happiness is, by nature, fleeting—though obviously not as fleeting as joy. Joy is a spark, a sudden gust. Joy is literally
all about the moment
. Happiness has a longer half-life than joy but it's still not a distance runner. Happiness is a day trip, a short story. Happiness implies a certain freedom from doubt or regret or existential discomfort and is therefore impossible as a long-term proposition, at least for all but the most unexamined souls. Happiness is an effect of good news, which, like most news, usually rolls off our screens as quickly as it rolled on. If we're lucky, happiness lasts about as long as a decent manicure.

But
contentment
: that is something to strive for. My goal in life is to be content. By that I don't mean “fine” or “basically satisfied.” I don't mean settling. I mean, for lack of better terms, feeling like I'm in the right life. Contentment, for me, would mean living in a place where I felt like part of a community, doing work that feels reasonably meaningful, surrounding myself with people I enjoy, respect, and in some cases love. It would mean spending as little time as possible doing things I don't want to do.