Never Full

I have never seen myself as the Bobby Flay or Gordon Ramsay type of chef but more of the David Chang - Anthony Bourdain type. Rough, underground, an enemy to normal, an unacknowledged pioneer. I wish I could tell you a good story about how my love for cooking began in a small village in France. That my first oyster, slithery, slimy, and foreign popped the bubble in my mind and the rest is history. But the truth is, it is that the names above are who made me want to cook. I did not discover my love for cooking in the kitchen or at a restaurant but instead in front of my TV screen.

My first love was the show Chopped. Oh, how exciting it was. Like putting together a puzzle made of food. The contestants were given five ingredients that they had to make work together no matter how different. Octopus and cranberries? What a challenge! Goat cheese and beef liver? How criminal! I can’t stop watching, show me, chef. Show me how you will make this disaster of ingredients work together to form a beautiful main course dish. The losers were kicked off or ‘chopped’ after each round, appetizer, main course, and dessert. The only thing that could have made it more entertaining was if Ted Allen chopped off the losing contestants’ pinky finger! 

As I grew into my teens my love changed channels from the Food Channel to the Travel Channel, where I found my first food idol -Bourdain himself. Calling him an idol would probably make him puke in his mouth but his true love for food, places, and people, and I mean a love that jumped through the screen, was always something that would grab ahold of me. He was charming, rough around the edges, and clearly knew what he was talking about when it came to food. I’ll never forget his rule that in order to be responsible enough to make love to a woman, a young man must be able to cook her an omelet in the morning. Now that’s social responsibility! For a young man of 17, that was all I needed to hear to begin my cooking journey. Women were on my mind the first time. Nervous and sweaty. The parallels were uncanny, but I’ll save you the details.

Today, as a thirty-two-year-old bachelor still searching for love, I turn to cooking to escape isolationism. Maybe you were hoping for some story of how I went on to become a top chef and now I’m some sort of a mix between a rockstar and a chef. Unfortunately, those dreams have long passed and instead, my days are filled with meetings regarding medical supplies and the new wonder drug. Part of me is kind of glad that food is not my whole life but instead is a path for escape. An escape from work, the real world, and failed relationships. All of it makes me sick to think about. If I don't cook, all I think about is the negative. Cooking helps me to focus on a task, be creative, and melt the evil thoughts away. The evil thoughts make me feel enclosed. Trapped. No way out, suffocating, I force myself to cook and that is where I find myself tonight.

The steaks have been sitting out for 45 minutes. They are seasoned with salt and pepper. Nice and simple.

The pan is set to medium-hot. Perfectly warm. The oil inside heating up. The garlic is diced and fills the kitchen with a unique aroma that I love. Linger by The Cranberries plays on my speaker system throughout the apartment and it makes me warm inside. This in combination with the wine. A rough acoustic red wine from the south of France. My favorite for a Thursday night.

Cooking is a perfect excuse just to slow down and reflect. I can stop to process the whole day, and focus on small tasks for prepping. Oh shit. My elbow bumped into the wine bottle. It was only filled with a half of a glass of wine but now it’s all over the tile floor. The dark red covers the floor and makes my stomach tighten, it looks like spilled blood. But it’s not, blood on the tile is stickier and doesn't splatter as much as the wine did. I am such a clutz. I am just an idiot. Ow! The glass cut me! I’m bleeding. Now that is blood. The deep familiar red that flows inside and out of the human body. It runs down my hand and begins to drip on the pale tile food. Red drops splatter sporadically creating some sort of fucked up art project. I cover the two-inch long cut with a paper towel and pick up the rest of the pieces of glass. Why can’t I have nice things? Why can’t I have one night that goes smoothly? I am such a fuckup! No, no, no. The bread in the oven is smoking. Ughhh. I am the king of mess-ups. Once it rains it pours is what Mother said when she was still alive. I take out the burnt garlic bread and put it on the counter, the burnt smell is repulsive. My wine bottle is shattered but at least my heart is intact.

I can't help but be reminded of when Rachel broke that wine bottle five years ago. Ha! She didn’t know how to handle me. I need a woman who can handle all of this. I told her who I truly was. You'd think after three months of dating she’d be able to handle the real me. But women just don't get me at all. They never have and they never will. Mother didn't and I’ve yet to meet a woman who comes close. Mother at least didn't run away, she didn't break things off with me like Rachel tried to. I can’t lie, I loved Rachel a lot. Despite her inability to cook Eggs Benedict, she meant a lot to me. We would travel all over, camp in the woods, hike a peak, or even venture occasionally to a new food truck selling food from a part of the world neither of us had ever tasted. She made the best tomato soup you have ever tasted. It reminded me of a childhood filled with shivering nights and warm bowls of soup with salty crackers.

At one point, I thought she was the one. Even more critically, I thought that she thought that I was the one. How foolish of me. You think you know someone and then they turn out to not only be a liar (she didn't love me) but a manipulator (she was always choosing where to go eat). I didn't want to hurt Rachel, I swear. I was just really angry back then. When I told her I had killed for her and would do it again, that bottle slipped right threw her hands like a muddy pig. How could she not love that I had carried out the most manly task ever? I did it all for her. But she began to talk about police and reports and leaving. I told her that the ex-boyfriend who did that thing to her was evil. And evil people deserve what comes to them. I killed him because I loved her, why couldn't she understand this? I got rid of one less evil person in the world and how I am repaid? Accusations and name-calling, threats and screaming were all I heard from her that night. Lots of screaming.

Father taught me that if people truly love you then they won't run. He didn't teach me a lot, with a liquor bottle in one hand and a wooden bat in the other, but he did teach me how to take care of a situation that goes south. If only Mother knew when to keep her mouth shut… Rachel threatened me with jail, the same home as my father,  she gave me no choice but to... I don't like thinking about it. The anger took over me. You know, one might think it would be like butchery but in fact it was more like that one scene from Goodfellas with the razor and garlic. Intricate care. Precise slicing. Surgery. Not slashing and chopping. I’m no monster. I’m not the American Psycho bullshit. I have flaws! But we all have flaws.

I admit part of me is sorry and part of me is ashamed of what I did but part of me isn’t because the night I did that to Rachel was the night I found my true love for cooking. Yes, it felt wrong at first but I now admit I crave it. However, I am a man of discipline! Once a year I permit myself a night to cook a meal of this standard. I spend all year carefully scouting. A beginner's mistake at the Saturday morning market is taking home the first piece of produce you find. You must be picky. As a cook and as a human, you must be picky regarding the produce you consume. I was careful. I chose it very carefully. There were many options this year. Many I didn’t go for. Too small, too many drugs, too much alcohol. But then I saw her. Perfect in every way. Hourglass figure and healthy. 

I saw her at Cordson’s Acai Bowl Shop every Tuesday after my pilates class. She kept catching my eye, I caught hers, and I knew she was going to be interested. It began with a date at a small Indian joint. Something spicy, something to put away any nerves. We talked about poetry and Frank Sinatra. She was an old soul like me. It was a pity her future was predetermined. She was nice but who knows what kind of evil I would have discovered about her if we had kept going on dates. On the surface, she was too good for me, we both knew it. From what she said about herself, she had many friends, I couldn't relate. Her name was Vicki. Much like a well-prepared acai bowl, she was nothing but a treat to be devoured by this world. 

The only question is, does she need a little more coriander before we put her in the pan?