I could get a vanilla bean at one of the grocery stores a stone’s throw away. I know exactly which aisle, no matter the store: glass bottles of spice at one end, technicolor H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y candles at the other. There’s no aisle that dares spell party like this one, the story of a celebration told in dry rub and cake mix, ending with the sprinkles. I could get a vanilla bean here, easy. In and out. Nevertheless, I head across town: It’s always a good day for the spice shop.
I never liked fishing with my dad. It was too early and bitterly cold. We’d leave in the dark and set up as the day peeled from night, tired and reluctant like me—that’s when the biting’s good. It was molasses-slow work. Unable to understand a labor of love, or delayed gratification (if that’s what a few wet fish could be called), I missed the point. I never felt the calm that he did while we waited. But I’ve always loved the smell of fishing.
This project tends to turn my attention backwards, looking behind for guidance from people whose names I don’t know and who never knew mine. If not backwards, then internal, grappling with parts of me that remain uncharted. Where I don’t usually look is forward—into the future, and where this knowledge might go once learned.
I’m used to the mayonnaisey potato salad. The kind that sticks to a big spoon—splat it down on a picnic plate and it stays in one lump. The way my mom makes it, with celery, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, black olives. Like a summer stuffing. This is the potato salad of barbecues and potlucks, marking an occasion where a normal day might’ve been. A thrill goes through me when I see it in the fridge, wearing a foil cover like a party dress.
For the most part, I stay away from eggplant. While I love vegetables, there’s something about this one that doesn’t work for me. It may be the way it turns to mush when cooked, a softening so dramatic there’s nothing left to chew. It may be the deep purple of the skin and pale green inside, a color combo I find jarring. It may just be a flavor that isn’t for me. But I’ve always been curious about eggplant parmesan.
It’s soothing to make soup. It starts with the vegetables, lined up and chopped; peeled if they need it. I love to strip a potato down nude, to unsheathe a beet, to push garlic through a press. These acts are timeless, repeated by everyone before and after us, for sustenance or pleasure. Often both. There’s a reliable harmony as the pot fills and boils down, and it’s calming to know it all comes together if you give it long enough. You can’t mess up a soup.
When we’re living in our first apartment together, my future husband and I go to an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood some nights. It’s an a-frame with a shingled roof that looks like it might’ve started as a diner, or a place you’d call a “joint”. The lights are low and several separate dining areas stretch out from the middle in secluded wings. It’s prime for quiet conversation; maybe not quite a mob hangout, but good for a date. The first time we go I get the bolognese.
More of a “sandwich pie” than a cake in the American sense, this was made from another recipe by Ino Kuvacic. He writes that the cake “can be prepared for any occasion”, and is made all over Croatia with different fruit fillings. In my own reconstruction, its breadth was an invite to decide for myself what it was: Is it breakfast? Breakfast’s dessert? Brunch? Lunch itself? Certainly I couldn’t wait until after dinner.
