in praise of cooking with other people
alternatively, a simple recipe for garlic bread
Hello darling readers, I have emerged from the silent mist into which I vanished around the beginning of March. If you didn’t notice I was gone — well, neither did I. If you’re here just for the garlic bread (!!) recipe, scroll all the way to the bottom. The rest of this is an ode to letting people feed you when you’re not really on your game.
In the last few weeks, those of you who are true fans have been asking me what happened to my enthusiastic and controversial food opinions. The honest answer? I just haven’t had any that felt particularly inspiring. Every time I opened my fridge and stared at the tubs and cartons of eggs, olives, miso, Greek yogurt, jam, and chili crisp that I keep stocked 24/7, I’ve fought to feel any desire to cook at all. For the last two months, when I’m eating by myself, my diet has consisted of some variation of exactly four meals. (Brown rice and a jammy egg. Pan-fried fish and roasted asparagus. Soba noodles with sesame oil. Greek yogurt with a banana.)
You might call this depression. It’s more, however, that writing a newsletter requires embracing your role as the main character — and I just have not been in my main character era. It turns out that funding your life by freelancing articles can be quite a dispiriting experience, even when it’s fairly straightforward. So when I’m not working, I haven’t wanted to read, to write, or to cook: the three things that usually sustain me. I’ve wanted to be with the people who love me, thinking about anything else. I’ve wanted to be at the gym (truly a shocking turn of events). I’ve wanted to lie in a hammock in the park and listen to podcasts.
But a person cannot eat the same four meals for two months no matter how dull they feel. And I haven’t, thanks to my roommates, my best friends, my boyfriend, and my family. I am surrounded by people who love food just as much as I do, and they have cooked with me and fed me. Most of the time, I haven’t had to ask. I have been, in every sense of the word, nourished.
I’ve felt very uncomfortable with this. I have a reputation as a self-sufficient person. I’m usually the one with the ideas, and I’m usually telling people what to do in the kitchen. I do not like feeling dependent or admitting I need anything at all. But the world has been conspiring to teach me that even though I don’t like it, needing other people can be healthy and even fulfilling (in so many ways beyond food, too).
An example: A few weeks ago, I had five completely transcendent, fun, laugh-filled days in Boston. I slept on my brother’s couch. I drank wayyyyy too much Downeast cider (iykyk). I let my brothers cook me pasta, eggs, and hamburgers. I walked into that house, exhausted and worn out, and for four days let other people feed me.
And on the last big night, with nine of us for dinner, my brother planned to cook chicken piccata and celery risotto. When we were children, our dad made us this meal so many times that we now turn to it instinctively when we cook for others. That evening, without really offering, I found myself tending the risotto while my brother seared the chicken, standing next to him at the stove, growing exhausted by the hour of endless stirring, tasting over and over again for that moment when the rice no longer crunched against my teeth. Our bodies knew exactly how the ritual should feel. None of it had been my idea, but there I was. The act of cooking something I knew just felt GOOD.
Yet the idea for today’s newsletter — an ode to cooking what you know, at the direction of someone else, next to someone you love, and for others — did not solidify until last week. I’d had a soul-crushing kind of day (I am of course prone to hyperbole, but it was up there on the list of recent bad days), and then my boyfriend offered to make me dinner. He made vodka sauce, and I made garlic bread, and we talked about everything and nothing. By the time we’d finished eating, I was having a different and happier kind of day.
Like the risotto and the chicken piccata, the garlic bread I made that night is a classic icon of my childhood, learned from my father before I can remember. It’s exactly the right amount of effort for that moment when someone else is feeding you, but you still want to be in the kitchen. It doesn’t require inspiration or creativity, but it feels good to both make and eat.
To make the garlic bread…
Peel and mince or finely slice about four or five cloves of garlic. Take a small skillet and dump in several generous glugs of olive oil (about 1/4 cup), two tablespoons of butter, and all the minced garlic. Turn the heat to medium-low. Heat until the garlic sizzles, but do not let it brown (about five minutes). The oil should be infused with buttery, garlicky flavor. Turn off the stove.
Meanwhile, slice a baguette in half vertically and then into garlic-bread sized sections, whatever suits your fancy. Take the cut side of the bread and dip it into your garlicky oil-butter, pressing down to make sure the cut side gets nice and soaked in oil. Place it face up on a baking sheet. Put the baking sheet of oiled bread in either your toaster oven (and toast) or under your broiler (for about two minutes, until toasted). Once the bread is nice and toasty, top with grinds of salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, oregano, fresh herbs (like parsley or thyme) if you have them, and perhaps a grating of parmesan cheese. Eat before it gets cool.
Restaurant notes this week
coffee/work vibes: Doubles. Park View/Petworth/CoHi intersection. I do most of my best writing on the back patio. The coconut banana bread and the chocolate cherry scone are inspirational. I have probably already recommended this place once and will do it again because it is my local coffee shop. I essentially live here.
great beer in Navy Yard: Bluejacket. Just a very cool vibe. Far enough away from the stadium that you don’t feel like every other person in D.C. if you’re there for a baseball game.
I promise I’ll be back with a more regular cadence from now on! A tease for next time…
Certified, authentic.
I'm not crying, . . . well, maybe I am.
Great post!