A Love/Hate Relationship

I love New York. Wait, let me rephrase that: I hate New York. But seriously, my relationship with this city is somewhere between murderous and newlywedy. Every day I wake up to the sound of my fantastic upstairs neighbors stomping around in heels. I brush my teeth with overpriced toothpaste, pull my hair into a loose bun and grab my heaviest wool coat, my walking shoes and purple gloves. I lock all thirty-five deadbolts on the front door of our apartment, hold my breath through the smells of other people's B.O. in the hallway and burst out the front door with a large gulp of polluted, construction-dust air. I slip on the 3-day old New York Times plastered to the stoop, falling into dog excrement as someone yells, "You suck!" from a delivery van stuck in traffic in front of me. I wait for a subway car that will be so crowded I'll be forced to stand in someone's armpit and get asked for money (that I don't have) at least three times a day. This is my lady, New York, and although she sh*ts on me pretty consistently I still cannot thank her enough for not spitting me out the moment I set foot in this concrete jungle. The city I love (hate).

That doesn't mean I won't be ready to pack up and move out of the Upper East Side the minute our lease has expired, which happens to be at the end of March. We're not yet ready to leave the Empire State, so we're seeking a change of pace in lovely Brooklyn. Am I ready to move to Brooklyn? Yes. Is Brooklyn ready for a pale, sarcastic chef who wears fake pearls and K-Mart moccasins and a faux-hawked math freak who wears ties for "fun"? No; my guess is that we're going to get eaten alive. Do they even broadcast "Jeopardy" in Brooklyn? Remind me to look into that…

At the end of December I was wound so tight with stress and cold air - I think I yelled at an infant for taking my seat on the subway. I was walking around with a frown on my face, hating everyone that looked at me the wrong way and didn't jump out of my path as I approached. It was bad, and I needed a vacation STAT! Enter my in-laws, living in the gorgeous and ideal Dallas. We were fortunate enough to spend the holiday in Texas with them and my sister-in-law, her husband and my Godson were also in town. It was one big, happy family reunion and we definitely made the rounds, visiting everyone and anyone who would have us. We saw aunts, uncles, grandmas, cousins, brothers, neighbors, toddlers, pre-teens and best friends. We danced, made pasta, drank beer, mingled, ordered pizza, opened presents, took preventative flu medicine, slept in, rode an old-fashioned train, ate candy/cookies/cake/pie, shopped the deals, talked, relaxed…phew. It was wonderful, and I didn't think once about my hectic New York City lifestyle.

I'm always amazed at how adaptable Steve and I are to our surroundings. As New Yawkers, we're tough, rude and decisive. When do I want my dry-cleaning delivered, you ask? In an hour, but make it quick I'm busy. When we're in Indiana, we tend to convince ourselves that we are happy to be back in the Midwest. OMG, I'm so happy the sun hasn't come out for three weeks. Wow, it feels warmer than 3 degrees Fahrenheit! My favorite transformation, however, occurs in the air somewhere over Tennessee on our way to Dallas, Texas. All of a sudden, Steve looks tanner, his hawk gets a little higher and he sits straighter and calmer. My hair lightens, black mascara magically appears on my lids and I have the extreme desire to buy a Chevy Tahoe. We start throwing in little ya'lls everywhere, and saying things like, "I'm fixin' to get ready to go to the kitchen, honey pie. Can I get you some chips and queso?" When I'm out and about in Dallas, I smile at everyone, and strike up conversations with random "natives." I feel special when someone looks at me like I belong here, like I was born a Texan. Today, I had to return an item of clothing I bought at a Dallas mall over our Christmas vacation.

"Hi, I bought this shirt at one of your stores in Dallas, I hope that won't be a problem."

"No, not at all, I'll just make the even exchange."

"Oh I'm so glad, because I bought it in Dallas."

"Yep, not a problem, ma'am. Just give me a second."

"Cool…Dallas…gotta love that Dallas! Doo doo doo…did I mention I bought this in Dallas?"

She wasn't impressed. Whatever.

As the week came to an end, we boarded the airplane with 20 pounds of extra luggage and a few less knots in our city-worn muscles. Three hours later we circled into the New York area, descended into LaGuardia Airport, grabbed our luggage and…waited in a snow-filled line for 45 minutes for a taxi. Crossing the Triboro Bridge back into Manhattan, though, was a religious experience: the Empire State Building shone like a beacon in the smog-filled skyline. I could almost smell the burnt street meat, urine-soaked trash piles and cigarette smoke coming from 15-year old lungs. I felt the most myself, however, when Steve got in a fight with our cab driver. Welcome home.

Since then, the muscle knots have returned and the luggage has been unpacked. What remains, as always does when I travel to Dallas, is a storybook sense that somewhere, far away, exists my own personal sanctum where the weather is mild and you can get chips and queso at any hour of the night. But for now, we're back in New York with some new clothes, a refreshed attitude and a new year to look forward to. 2010 was epic – whatcha got for me 2011?

Happy New Year!

JACKIE'S SWEET POTATO SOUFFLE

I adapted this from a Food Network recipe that seemed a little…excessive. It was a huge hit at our Thanksgiving table, and will definitely become a staple for years to come. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Serves 8+

You will need:

-3 large sweet potatoes

-1 cup sugar

-2 eggs, beaten

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1/2 cup butter, room temperature

-1/2 cup heavy cream

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Topping (optional):

-1/4 cup butter, cold

-1/2 cup brown sugar

-1 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Poke potatoes several times with a fork and bake in oven until very soft, about 45 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 325˚F.

Scoop potato out into a bowl and whip with a hand mixer. Add sugar, eggs, salt, butter, milk and vanilla. Mix well and put in a greased casserole. Set aside.

In a food processor, chop butter and brown sugar together until it's a course, sandy consistency. Fold in the pecans and distribute evenly over casserole. Bake for 25 minutes, or until top is brown.

Enjoy!

Therapy…of the Physical Kind

I've had a lot of "free time" lately, but of course I use that term lightly. "Free time," to me, conjures up feelings and scenes from second grade, when we would be granted fifteen minutes of spare time after lunch to do whatever our little hearts desired: transferring our vocab words to flash cards, touching and smelling the new shipment of dictionaries in the library, thinking about ponies, having fake conversations with fake friends…you know, the normal things that normal second graders do. Now that I'm an adult who currently works part time and finds herself with a few unscheduled hours, I'm still trying to replicate that feeling of productivity that drove my days back when I was a miserable office drone. When I'm not working (or preparing for work), I have the wonderful ability to do whatever my little heart desires: organizing my recipes, writing lists about things I need to write lists about, touching and smelling the new shipment of books at the library, thinking about ponies and having fake conversations with my fake TV friends. I also take an inappropriate number of pictures of my cat, but let's leave that for another day.

I realized recently that I've been taking extreme advantage of my physical therapist. I've known her for a little over a year now, back when I saw her for an undiagnosed painful wrist, and I now consider her a friend. Now that my problem has been surgically fixed, she's helping me recover and gain back my mobility. The thing that I struggle with, though, is not the excruciating and blinding pain this "friend" puts me through several times a week; it's a word in her professional title: Therapist.

"Hey Jackie! Come on in, have a seat. How's everything going?"

"Yea, I'm doing alright, I guess."

"How are you feeling?"

"Well…honestly, you know, hmm…I'm feeling a little insufficient. I mean…really…what am I going to do with my life??"

"…Because of your wrist…?"

"I mean, no, not really. Am I living up to my own expectations??"

"You must have misunderstood me…how does your wrist feel."

"Oh, my wrist is fine. I mean, seriously, what is my main purpose for being on this earth? What is the goal…"

"Jackie…the wrist…physically, you're here about your wrist, right?"

"Should…should I lie down?"

I think it's something about medical authorities that automatically makes me want to over-disclose, made worse by the fact that I already have a predisposition to over-disclose information about myself to those not in the medical profession. I consider myself to be an honest person, an open book of sorts, but I tend to relax too much in beige midtown medical offices. Then again, I also tend to relax too much when I'm in awkward situations (quiet elevators, locker rooms, interviews, etc.) or when I'm wearing my Magic Velvet Sweat Pants. It's a slippery slope. One minute you're engaging in idle chatter about a recent trip to Target, the next minute you're explaining how you forgot to put the lid on the container for the prescription pads that you use to wipe your cat's vulva (because she's too obese to clean herself) and they're starting to dry out. Those things were expensive! And you can rest assured that I'm going to tell at least five people about it.

I think the solution is to start having random conversations with random people. That would take up some of my free time and also allow me to tell awkward stories without ever having to see these people ever again. No one wants to tell a good vomit story and then have to face that person again…not cool. Or maybe I could start calling 1-800s routed through India so that I can ask them insensitive questions like, "Have you had Chipotle?" and "Do you speak Hindi in your dreams?" Then again, I should probably just get a hobby. One that doesn't involve cats.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds…

If I could undo one day in my life, the entirety of my twenty five years, one day (nay, one HOUR) stands out in my memory like a large, sore thumb. It was that one day (one hour) that changed my life as I know it and is still causing a shockwave of consequences to this day in the form of medical and physical therapy bills.

In college, during a fun and joyful trip to the roller skating rink to welcome a new class of Freshmen into our sorority, I was tooling around on my skates when I fell…hard. So hard in fact that witnesses said the impact on my wrists made me pop several feet in the air, only to come back down on those same abused wrists and spine. To make a long story short, I broke my right radius, tilted my tailbone and dislocated my jaw (seriously). The trauma also caused both wrists to choose to develop nasty little cysts deep down in the joint, which, once the rest of my problems were under control, started to give me serious pain. I had my right wrist surgically fixed in college, but my left wrist has been the bane of my existence ever since, flaming up during the most inopportune moments.

So, after my wonderful and happy graduation from culinary school, I decided that there was no better time than the present to finally fix my left wrist, just in time to ruin my Halloween. I'm just now getting back on my feet/hands, and am able to type sentences with full punctuation, thoughtful candor and insightful wisdom. I've been dying to get back to the keyboard, so here I am. Is this the end of the backlash from that one night? We'll never know…if only I could go back to that dinky skating rink in West Lafayette, Indiana. The worst part of all is that I was 100% dead sober, something the emergency room nurse was quick to confirm. Had I been drunk, this might be a great life lesson. Alas, I'm just clumsy.

Having surgery on one of your necessary ambulatory joints is not easy…especially when it's the livelihood of my new career. There is an upside, though, in the form of a serving-size chalky combination of Oxycodone and Tylenol – the coveted Percocet. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pulling a Lindsay Lohan here…it was entirely necessary. When a doctor deconstructs your wrist joint to dig out a cyst and the local numbing wears off 24 hours later, you're in a bad place. I felt like a newborn calf, struggling to navigate this cruel world with unsteady and unbalanced limbs, helpless to the elements and losing the ability to wash myself. Every three and a half hours, though, I was rescued from the throbbing pain and delivered to a world where black, silky ponies combed my hair with sunshine and unicorns adorned with crowns of jewels microwaved my Bagel Bites (both of whom might have actually been Steve…I still haven't determined dream vs. reality). I was happy and pain-free without a care in the world, thanks to the joys of modern pharmacology. I saw strange things while pill-popping, things that I wouldn't dare speak of aloud. Things that would make a heroin addict uncomfortable and a psychologist nervous. It was an interesting few days, and I'd like to think I'm a better person after going through it all.

I stayed in that narcotic-induced purgatory for several days, during which I developed an unhealthy addiction to daytime television. Those first few uncertain days post-surgery, where I was not only unable to complete basic life tasks but was often either fighting a migraine or hazy from the drugs, I struggled to develop a routine that would make me feel like a slightly less waste of flesh.

9:00am – First alarm goes off. Take pain pill and continue to snooze until iPhone no longer allows it.

10:05am – 10:15am – attempt to pull on elastic-waistband pajama pants and wide-sleeved t-shirt. This takes longer than I'm willing to admit.

10:15am – 11:00am – watch "Rachael Ray", all the while thinking of how much I don't like Rachael Ray.

11:00am – 12:00pm – my favorite time of the day – "The View"! Watch listlessly with mouth agape while they have the exact same argument they had the day before and Joy Behar gets fined by the FCC for calling someone a "bitch" during daytime television.

12:00pm – 3:00pm – kill time by either spacing out on the couch, watching "Bridezillas" or "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" and counting down the minutes until I can take my next pain pill.

3:00pm – 4:00pm – "Dr. Oz," my man. Learn about five new medical conditions that I didn't know were possible. Begin to become paranoid that I have five new medical conditions that I didn't know were possible.

4:00pm – 5:00pm – Take another pain pill, which helps me get through an hour of Oprah Winfrey talking about how generous she is and laughing uncontrollably (Percocet) at her antics whilst camping with her best friend, Gayle. She cooked sea bass on a campfire!! Oh Oprah…money has changed you.

5:00pm – 5:30pm – Think about how much I want Steve to come home from work. Call him five times to ask him what time he's coming home from work. Watch the local news and become paranoid because I live in a city with at least five murders and three apartment fires a day. News is a bummer…luckily I'm feeling good!

5:30pm – 6:00pm – After receiving the much-anticipated phone call that Steve is on his way home from work, attempt to struggle into a clean t-shirt, change socks and brush hair with one hand. When this doesn't work, wipe drool off face, gargle with Listerine and resume spot on couch.

6:00pm – 10:00pm – Spend the evening regaling Steve with stories of my daytime television friends. "Oh my God, then Elizabeth told Whoopi to shut up, and we were all cracking up!!" or "When Oprah told me that, I just had to believe it." Try to ignore the deep pity in his eyes, and knowingly accept the final pain pill of the day, which makes me stop dead in my tracks and fall into a restful, kooky dream-filled sleep.

This went on for a few days, until I was finally confident and strong enough to venture outside into the real world. A trip to the library, for example, became the highlight of my day, and I would plan my eating/sleeping/watching schedule around that one errand. I was soon able to visit with friends again, when the unexpected and dreaded happened. I was happy as a clam, hanging out at a friend's house eating pizza on a Friday night, when I looked down and…I had dripped pizza grease all over my cast. Needless to say, I felt like an irresponsible 10-year old boy and couldn't make eye contact with the nurse as she carefully cut off the padding a few days later. I might as well have spread dirt on it and tucked a few worms in there while I was at it. Pizza grease…on a 25-year-old woman's cast…unbelievable.

So here I am, recovering nicely and on-track for a fully healed and functional wrist, for the first time in five years. I resumed my normal work schedule, yet am still struggling to break free from the grips of daytime television. Every time I see a commercial for "The View" my heart hurts and the "good times" of those few days come pouring back in a nostalgic and bittersweet wave. The pain of surgery is already forgotten, but the joy of delusional one-sided friendship still exists. Thank you, Barbara, Whoopi, Joy, Elizabeth and Sherry for helping me through a hard time. Thank you. Then again…it was probably all just a Percocet dream…

Monday, 10/25/10 – Level 6 Day 20 (FINAL EXAM)

I looked to the wall on the right, seeking out the analog clock hanging from the wall. My glasses were so full of grease splatters and sticky fingerprints that I couldn't make out the black hands encased in the clear plastic face that ticked a mere fifteen feet from my station. I wiped my hands on my apron and pulled the frames from my face, right to left, releasing a small drip of sweat waiting to run down the crease of my nose. A quick swipe on a stained towel did the trick well enough for me to make out the time: 8:16 pm.

Monday, October 25^th at 8:16 in the evening. I never truly thought I would make it this far, this mythically obsessed-about evening in time when my fate would be permanently sealed. Sure, I spent hours upon hours fantasizing about it: what recipes I would get, how I would feel, what would go wrong. Yet I was never realistic with myself about the brevity of the exam, and what it meant to the past ten months and my future career. And here I was, a full two hours and sixteen minutes into one of the most important nights of my life and I was feeling…calm. Relaxed. Confident.

I was scheduled to serve the bass at 9:09 pm, so I took a deep breath, letting the hot air reach the deep corners of my lungs, while I surveyed my station. Student #A6: Bass with Sea Urchin Sauce and Green Apple Charlotte. Potatoes: roasted. Baby fennel: cooked. Pickled tomatoes: drained. My next dish, the Charlotte, was supposed to be served at 9:57 pm, so I surveyed my mental checklist again. Ladyfingers: Piped and baked. Charlotte: formed. Green apple Bavarian cream: cooked and molded. Red currant sauce: cooled and bottled. I felt my blood pressure drop, causing my head to feel light while my heart skipped a beat as I came to the best realization of the night…I was practically done. 8:16 pm and I was already on the home stretch.

Before I knew it, we were being swept down the concrete hallway in numerical order, past portraits of the school's distinguished faculty and towards the deafening sound that only a standing ovation can produce – a creak as the back of your legs push the chair behind you and scrape a dent in the wooden floor, a swish as the paper you were holding sways through the air and hits the tablecloth and the unmistakable clap as one fleshy palm of skin meets another in a calculated impact. I was met at the threshold of the room with a glass of chilled champagne and wide grins from no less than twenty of the city's most famous chefs and food professionals, congratulating us all on a most successful night. It was like the end of a mid-90s romantic comedy, played in slow motion as Prince Charming finally kisses the Princess, and you just know in your heart that they will live happily ever after.

According to the judges, my fish was cooked immaculately, my sauce was delicious and my Charlotte was picture-perfect. I let my eyes gloss over as they critiqued the other students, taking my exhausted brain to an open-eyed dream where I felt myself reaching, struggling then finally grasping an unnamed prize; a present; a want; an accomplishment. And then it was over, six hours had passed like six minutes, and we all headed to the local watering hole to celebrate and say our goodbyes.

The next afternoon, amongst our peers, friends and loved ones we each ceremoniously had the toque, the tall creased French chef's hat, placed on our heads and our Grand Diplomes handed to us in shining leather booklets. I was also given a silver French Culinary Institute lapel pin to adhere with pride on my chef's jacket as an indication that I was one of the students who graduated with distinction, with a cumulative GPA of above 95%.

While a large chapter of my life closes heavy and obvious like the cover of a dusty dictionary, I happily place it back on the shelf, cataloging the good with the bad on the back of my soul. I smooth my hair down, adjust my apron and reach for the next book to start a new story.

The prince got his girl. The cat got her mouse. And the chef got her toque. Happily ever after.

Friday, 10/22/10 – Level 6 Day 19 (Poissonnier)

My last day came and went quicker than I could say "fail," and before I knew it my class time at the French Culinary Institute was over. Done. Finito. Fin.

It's bittersweet; a strange mix of nostalgia for the excitement and thrill of the beginning, a fear of leaving my comfort zone and the sad realization that I might never see some of these people ever again. I am overjoyed at finally being able to reclaim my weeknights and to gain some sort of normalcy in my schedule. But then again, the definition of "normal" is always subjective.

Since we had some down time, we did basic prep for the final: pickling cherry tomatoes, layering a potato terrine and pureeing the mustard crust for the lamb loins. It's wonderful that so much of the annoying stuff will be done for us on the final, cutting down our list of To Dos drastically. Being the smarta$$ that I am, I approached chef and said, "Chef, what are the odds you'll cook our fish and meat for the final too?" Ha ha ha. Classic. "Jacques-leen, don't be stoopid. Five points off for asking dumb questions." Fair enough, I deserved that.

Speaking of nostalgia, below are a few of my favorite moments of culinary school, in no particular order and preferably set to Green Day's "Time of Your Life" (acceptable substitute would be "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion:

-The time I turned into a blood-thirsty, cackling vampire of a fishmonger when tasked with separating a fish carcass.

-The time I cried for a week when the Taco Bell around the corner closed.

-The time I got really nervous for the Level 1 final…which involved cutting vegetables! Seriously, Jackie? Seriously?

-The time I ate organs. Pat on the back.

-The lobster funeral.

-The time I returned to NYC after a beautiful weekend in Texas a mere two hours before starting the Midterm exam…and killing it!

-The time we broke down and smoked an entire suckling pig.

-The time I got permanent squid ink stains on my uniform, which still remain to this day.

-The time we put on the hugely successful "Street Food" buffet.

-The day I started my first real job in the culinary world.

-The day I became a real, bona fide New Yorker.

 

My wonderful husband, in a gesture of support and love, came to pick me up from school to walk me home. We had toyed around with plans of getting a drink, going for a slice of pizza or just walking around to celebrate my last class EVER, but we ended up just hanging around outside talking to my classmates. After several minutes of chatting, we decided to head home for the night, so we bundled our coats tighter, picked up our bags and headed down the small alley that leads to the subway. We were walking along, me babbling like Chatty Cathy and Steve quietly listening, when I glanced at two people huddling near the edge of the sidewalk and…IT WAS MY PARENTS!! They had just landed in NYC, flying in to surprise me for my graduation. Of course Steve knew about it, it's been planned for a month now, but I had absolutely no idea. I was blown away, and even asked for a few minutes to process what was happening. I couldn't believe that it was all planned for me, in support of me and just to see me graduate. Our plans for a low-key weekend were not disturbed, and we've spent as much time possible eating pizza, hanging out and venturing to Target for "essentials." I'm trying to do as much as possible to keep my mind off the task I face tomorrow night, but it's hard not to dread the unknown. I know my recipes, I know my procedures and I know proper kitchen protocol. I just don't know what's going to happen, and that terrifies the crap out of me.

At this time nine months ago I was encountering fois gras for the first time and making salads. Five months ago I was meticulously shearing off the burnt edges of all 50 apple slices on the top of an over-cooked apple tart in Level 3. A month ago I was taking the mock pastry final. Tomorrow night I'll be running around, plating dishes and sending out food to the judges. And this time Tuesday night I'll be Chef Jackie (which is what I'll request to be called at all times, naturally. Hey, I didn't struggle through these past ten months for nothing…) They say time flies when you're having fun. But in addition to that, time flies when you're finally doing what you were born to do.