Cooking- thanks to Mom, Jane, Cesar, and Veronica (with props to Mike)

I love food. I probably got this from my mom, who enjoys to be decadent when it comes to food(picture a 3 year-old in her mother's kitchen, finding a stick of warm butter on the counter...oh no, mom's coming! what to do? pop the whole thing in your mouth, of course! mom says, 'what's in your mouth, Janice?' and all you can do is smile, melted butter oozing from the corner of your mouth) yet who on the flip side instilled in me the necessity of a well-balanced meal at every meal. She went through her health food phase (I remember walking down the aisle of the musty-smelling shop listening to The Tide is High by Blondie and looking in all the dry food bins of different grains and colors, then spinning the rack of seed packets beside them) but never cut herself off from a pint of chocolate Haagen Dazs and a chug of extra rich milk almost daily during her pregnancy with one or all of my brothers. Through it all she managed to keep her slim figure (good genes combined with youth and lots of running around chasing kids). I only hope the same fate will be mine when the time comes to have my own little one(s).

I love to make food. I also got started with this thanks to mom again- she let me help her make and bake anything she was working on in the kitchen. We probably made chocolate chip cookies a hundred times but it never got old. I kept the flow going when opportunity arose- my first job working as a barista at The Grind in Oakhurst, CA expanded as the shop did, first with an ice cream parlor addition and then a kitchen in the back. I jumped at the chance to try something new so I happily built up my forearms to scoop hard-packed ice cream in the summer and my biceps to whip eggs as the cook's assistant.
I was very aggressive when it came to work, something that suprised my fellow high school classmates.
This quiet girl who barely says two words to anyone she doesn't know well talks up the owner, Jane, of the only hip cafe in her quiet little tourist town at age 15. Jane tells her she and her husband only hire kids who are 16 and older but the girl coerces them to hire her by her sheer persistence. I can still see Jane shaking her head and smiling. And so this girl learned to make the perfect espresso shot and the trick to making a good milk foam. She popped chocolate covered espresso beans and drank coffee and revelled in the aroma. Harmony and Melanie and Ronnie all thought she was trying to impress the boss by mopping the floor so thoroughly, but really, she enjoyed the work.
It continued on in college when she got a job at Noah's Bagels as a sandwich girl. When Tatum quit (she herself this pint-sized badass with a gravelly voice, probably in her mid-twenties) she again coerced her boss, Cesar, into thinking it was somehow a good idea to train a 19 year-old dance student to bake bagels (not hand-rolled unfortunately- wish I learned that skill- but it still took a lot of steps to make a good bagel from its frozen state). She had to get up when her roomates were still partying and carried keys to the place. She always considered herself a morning person but is 3:30am really morning? Had to tell herself it was or else she'd have a little panic attack...somehow if a friend said 'you work so late!' she'd look at them like they were cross-eyed. She enjoyed the quiet of the mornings and having the place all to herself, allowing her to work at her own pace and listen to the entire Pink album of Sunny Day Real Estate on repeat while I seeding bagels. She was proud of her Popeye arms and her battle wounds- inch-long, thin scars all up the knife edge of her forearms from the baking racks.

Again and again she talked people into believing in her abilities, trusting then that even though she didn't have experience she would learn quickly and eagerly.
Veronica believed in her when she decided to quit waiting tables and try her hand at pastry cooking. A feisty Argentinian femina with long black hair wearing baggy chef's checks cinched with a belt over her petite frame met her in the bar area of Marseille and talked to her about her experience: did you go to school for cooking? no? well, good, I believe in experience over lessons any day. V had the girl make something in the basement kitchen as a test; I think it was her fruit ceviche in a chocolate cup. Much later they were reminded of that first day and she said the girl's hands were shaking but she did a good job. She was hired and learned how to temper chocolate (something I'm still not a pro at) and make caramel and tuiles and clafoutis. She kept a notebook of her daily work following Veronica's lead and it quickly became covered in batters of different sorts. More battle wounds to be proud of.
These jobs were cut short for various reasons- moving, not enough pay, yada yada yada- but she somehow kept going back. It's not easy work and you have to deal with agressive cooks in the kitchen...the biggest hurdle with that situation no matter how you handle it is the fact that you're one of the few females in the kitchen, like it or not. Ask Anthony Bourdain- the kitchen, depite what Betty Draper may tell you, is a man's world. The girl started off dealing with this meekly. She put her head down and got to work. Veronica's style was fierce- she would whip her head around and scream at anyone who made a low comment, and the girl admired her for it. Sometimes it was a little to aggro for her taste and V didn't seems to have many friends in the kitchen, but she didn't really care. She just wanted to make her chocolate peanut butter tart shell and no one was going to get in her way in making it perfect. The tried on her style but realized it wasn't hers. Yelling at the guys just shook her up and made her angry. She tried to go along with their style but the language didn't fit well in her mouth and in the end she was most comfortable when laying low and doing her thing. Cooks came and went and that's when she met her buddy Mike, a line cook and sous chef who would make her tuna with sesame seeds one night when things got slow and foie gras on another night. I'm sure she gained a few pounds at that place. I mean, someone needs to taste the caramel ice cream to make sure it turned out tasty, right?

In between it all I worked with many a kid, starting with my brothers and then neighborhood kids, assisting during jr. high and high school at the elementary school as a class, and various teaching and nannying along the way. It has been a ping pong match of sorts- kids- food- kids- food...the last run was kids for a good stretch...will food be next? No matter what I still have a kitchen at home, even though it is too small for what I try to accomplish in it. It's laughable, really- I become a quiet storm in there, unable to make only one thing at a time (I'm a compulsive multi-tasker at heart and working in any part of a restaurant aids in this compulsion). I dare you to try to enter the kitchen when I'm making something- George has tried and only winds up ducking out. It's a little dangerous in our little city kitchen: last night alone I had a plate of seasoned bread crumbs balanced on the toaster oven, a dish of egg wash teetering on the edge of the sink, stacks of eggplant in various stages of being cooked on our little slip of a counter and the stove top and the trash can lid (ahh! I want more counter space!!) but of course I don't stop there- I had a nagging need to finish rolling my matcha truffles and at the same time baking off the rest of my carrot souffle. I'm a basketcase. And it's time for lunch.