Please join me at rochellebilow.com for a bit of food and writing.
The Italians Would Start the Freaking Out ...
... If they knew we were putting creme fraiche in our risotto.
Last night at the French Culinary Institute, we made fresh pasta, risotto, rice pudding and potato gnocchi. These are all things I loved to eat before I started at FCI - all things I used to make for myself on a regular basis. (You may remember a certain infatuation with arborio rice ...) But since enrolling, I've adopted a sort of disdain for all foods not French. Maybe it comes from Chef X, who says "Ze Ee-tal-ee-ans" with about the same inflection one might use to talk about "Ze mass murderers" or "Ze butter-haters." Every lesson that includes a hint of Italian flair comes with a disclaimer: "That is ze way of ze Ee-tal-ee-ans, I don't very get it."
So anyway, yes, I've eliminated pasta and rice from my diet - not by way of low-carb fads, but simply because, I figure, why eat penne when you can eat a steak with sauce choron?
But I think Chef has a fondness for pasta and rice, because no matter how much he'd deny it, I saw a certain calm wash over him as he worked spinach dough in an electric machine. I might even go so far as to say that pasta's his thing.
Suffice it to say, then, I very much wanted to impress him with my risotto. Risotto was my thing! It'd been so long since I'd made one - would I remember how? As I toasted the rice in butter and saffron, I let the steam from the simmering chicken stock waft upwards. Oh yes. I remember. This is easy.
When my rice was done - soupy, but not overcooked, soft but not mushy - I checked my recipe card. Stir in parmesan cheese, butter and creme fraiche. Creme fraiche? That wasn't very Italian. And yet - totally brilliant. Why hadn't I thought of that before!? The tangy, creamy smoothness would bring something butter and parmesan just couldn't on their own. I added a generous amount and lifted a spoonful to my mouth. Good god, it was delicious.
I plated my dish and brought it up to Chef, who, try as he might, couldn't find a negative thing to say. I wanted to enjoy it, but I'd already stuffed myself to the gills with pillows of gnocchi and diced pancetta. I scooped it into a quart-sized container to bring home. I'd bake arancini with the leftovers! Arancini would make a beautiful dinner, along with a bed of romaine and radicchio. And don't start the freaking out, but I might even pair it with a French wine.
Peach Creeps
Crepes for Two
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
Pinch salt
Pinch sugar
1 1/4 cup whole milk
3 eggs
1 peach, halved and sliced thinly
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Melted butter, for cooking crepes
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and sugar. Form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.
Break and beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add to the well of flour. Using a fork, slowly incorporate the eggs into the flour. Once the mixture becomes too gloopy to stir, add the milk and whisk together until smooth and quite liquid.
Refrigerate the dough for an hour to relax the gluten.
When ready to cook, brush a small, nonstick pan with melted butter (just enough to coat) and ladle a small dollop of batter onto it. The amount needed will vary; make a few test crepes to see how much is just enough - and how much is too much. Immediately tilt the pan in a circular motion, swirling the batter to entirely coat the bottom. Place back on heat and cook until just solidified. Remove the pan from the heat, hold it at your waist, and flip! The crepe should fly in the air and land directly back on the pan. If it sticks, try banging the pan on the stove once or twice (or eight times, if you dislike the landlord below you) to dislodge the crepe. Cook for just a minute more and remove to a hot plate.
Meanwhile, in a small pan, combine peaches, solid butter and brown sugar. Cook over low heat until peaches begin to break down and their natural sugars combine with the butter and brown sugar to form a syrupy consistency.
To plate, put more butter in the empty nonstick skillet. Add a crepe and flip it to coat with butter, then fold it into fourths (it will look like a triangle). Repeat with three more crepes and arrange on a plate, topped with peach syrup.
This recipe makes plenty for two, leftovers, and a few for the cook to sneak while flipping.
Moving to Manhattan
When my roommate told me she was moving back home to Syracuse to take some personal time after a crazy summer in the city, I knew that the next month would be a trying one. I first attempted to find a replacement roommate - but who wants to live with a stranger? Certainly not me. But I couldn't afford to stay put without some financial backing, and besides, a 5-room apartment is really too big for one small person. I was idling in indecision last Thursday when I rounded my block after a long run in the park. I unlocked the door, expecting to douse myself in cold water and enjoy a good stretch. Instead, I found my landlord, snooping around my bedroom.
"I fixing hole in the wall; it is emergency," she said, her voice almost shrill, dripping with guilt.
Oh, I was livid. Immediately, I called to mind all of her previous wrongdoings, the apartment's many shortcomings. There was the front door - broken since I moved in, the sporadic lack of hot water, the toilet that didn't flush for a week, the mold lurking behind the shower tiles. I poked my head into the room and watched her pass my rabbit's cage.
"HI! HI HI HI!" she said, leaning down to the bunny.
It was time to move.
I spent all morning and afternoon today looking at apartments in Manhattan. I was never really a Brooklyn kind of girl - and with a new job waiting for me in the most stylish borough*, it seemed like a good fit.
I looked at scads of apartments, all studios and all decidedly tiny. My (least) favorite was a fifth-floor walk-up, devoid of decoration or design, save a pen-scrawled sheet of looseleaf, taped to the wall above the stove. It read: "Give into the fear, give into the dark, the desperation and depression. Make them feel it. Make them feel the fear."
I begged the broker to take me to a place better suited for me, and he showed me a respectably sized studio on West 75th. The entire thing could fit into my bedroom in Brooklyn. But it was quiet, and everything worked, and there would be no crazy landlord spying on my comings and goings.
Ryan pointed out that Gael Greene lived close by, on the Upper West Side as well. I asked the broker where I could sign up.
Unfortunately (these sorts of things always have an "unfortunately") the paperwork didn't pan out, and I found myself back on the train to Brooklyn. "Drats," I thought. "Homeless." I had had such high hopes for the apartment-scouring trip.
As I approached my decrepit old mansion in Brooklyn, I spotted my landlord outside, applying packing tape to the shards of glass on the front door. A few weeks earlier, my sister cut her hand on the perilous entryway. Well, a raging lunatic might still easily break in, but at least now his appendages would be safe from sharp edges.
I'd told my landlord yesterday of my plans to move out. It didn't go well. Feeling discouraged about the day's fruitless effort and exhausted from the blocks and blocks walked in heels (note: don't wear heels when looking at apartments), I was in no mood to argue about the nuances of the lease.
I hovered at the corner for a few minutes, waiting for her to finish the job. She continued to tape, so I ducked into the bar two doors down. It was awfully busy for a Monday at 4; all around me, men played lottery, watched a game on television and drank Blue Moon out of glasses.
"Hi sweetheart," the barkeep said.
"Hello," I said with less of a smile than I usually share. "Do you have St. Germain?"
He laughed. "This isn't Manhattan, on the East side!" he said, chuckling all the way through.
"Hm," I acknowledged. "Then I'll just have a gin and tonic - with lemon, instead of lime."
He handed me a squat glass with a wedge of citrus, and I thanked him. I sipped and slipped my shoes off, dangling them from my toes.
The man to my left noticed my ever-present FCI textbook and asked me about culinary school. I was a food writer, I told him - even though I was beginning to wonder if I wasn't really just a writer writer. He asked where he could read my writing, and for the first time after being asked that question, I lied.
"I just write for myself," I said.
"Ah, that's good," he said.
"Yeah, it can be."
I finished my gin and asked the bartender how much I owed.
"Three-fifty."
I almost had a heart attack - not even in Syracuse could one buy a drink for that price!
The man to my left waved me away as I fished through my wallet for the change. "I'm buying it for you." He said it in such a way that made me feel like a friend, not a potential conquest. That was nice.
I snuck into my apartment as quietly as I could, so as not to alert my landlord to my presence.
Later, I sat on my bed, packing boxes of the memories I've accumulated in my three months in Windsor Terrace. I'd miss the space, the beautiful 5 P.M. light that coated my walls like butter. I'd miss the friendly neighborhood, the cheap drinks and the quiet lull of trees at night.
But I had to leave. My time was up, and I wasn't going to be left in the dust over a few pangs of nostalgia. Besides, I thought, wrapping the picture of myself at age 5, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, there is sure to be St. Germain**.
---
*I have been hired to work in one of the kitchens in the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle.
**I will be residing on the UES temporarily, until I find a tiny studio of my own - or the penthouse suite of the Trump Tower opens up.
A Long Way Down
The following piece is not sexy.
It contains graphic and disturbing imagery, as per these posts.
This happened quite some time ago, and it is over, and it has not happened again, and I am okay and happy. And healthy. I realize that I have presented myself as a bulimia recovery spokeswoman, and that's true - I am. But I would be lying if I pretended that I wasn't tempted on occasion. I would be lying if I said that recovery was easy, that food is just good. Food is many, many things to us, and to me in particular, and reading Frank Bruni's memoir reminded me of that. It made me want to be honest.
So there's no need to worry, and certainly no need to send in the troops. I make mistakes sometimes. If I didn't write about them, I'd be a fictional character - and not a very interesting one. True, such stories might be better suited for a memoir 50 years from now. But I have words - so many words - now, and I want to share them as they come to me. I'm not a fictional character; I'm a writer with an intensely personal relationship with food. Sometimes, people in relationships fight. This is one such fight.
Before reading, please consent that you acknowledge my health and commitment to fighting eating disorders. If you cannot, please consider skipping this piece. If you do continue, please enjoy this as a piece of art, and remember that the road to recovery never ends, but it becomes much more pleasant and pretty if you stay on it.
---
I lie on my bed, my head and shoulders on the mattress, my torso contorted sideways, my feet pressing against the wall. I am stretching, but I am also admiring my ribs. Not only can I count them, a lover could tongue the distinct space between each one. If he wanted to.
I've lost weight - a lot of it - and the empty space feels odd on my body. I am trying not to enjoy this.
Anyway, he is watching me and laughing. "Do you stretch like that in school?"
"Well, no, I wear clothes when I do it. I have to stretch, though. I just get so tight."
He leaves, and I drink three glasses of wine. The crazies are coming. I can feel them. I don't know why, but I suspect it has something to do with a prolonged sense of ennui. I fight them with alcohol and later, a walk. I've gotten pretty good at fighting them. I walk around the neighborhood in a hat and boots, singing Sarah Mclachlan. Your love is better than ice cream; better than anything else that I've tried. I hate myself for being this way, for being clichéd, but nothing seems to help.
I go to bed, a bit drunk but safe and still myself.
I wake up the next morning, write, clean, eat wild rice and beans for lunch, feel very full, but manage to write more. I go to school, I stretch with all of my clothes on. I come home late at night, exhausted and ready for sleep, but as soon as I enter the apartment, I want to do something. I eat raisin after raisin, not tasting them anymore. I drink more wine (dried grapes and then fermented grapes!), and then a glass of gin with St. Germain. Go away, crazies. I try to sate them with bad habits that won't kill me immediately.
I listen to music in bed. Everyone here knows how to cry.
I am rather drunk but safe and still myself. I go to sleep.
I wake up the next morning, eat breakfast, read, and go to work. I'm pretty hungry, but I don't eat much. My coworker asks what I'll have for dinner.
I screw my face up and think. What do I want? "Arugula with a rosemary vinaigrette, radishes and champagne?" It's what I want, but as I say it, I realize how not-normal it sounds. Maybe I'll have chocolate too.
Your love is better than chocolate.
"What about protein?" he says.
"Yeah, maybe ... I'll take home a few slices of Serrano."
I go home and immediately kiss my rabbit, pour a glass of water and fix my salad. No ham. I set dinner on the nightstand, next to the picture of me at age five. "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance," it says, quoting Oscar Wilde. Look at the frame. Look at the frame, look at the frame, I remind myself. Look at the fucking frame.
I also pour a glass of champagne.
I climb into bed and begin to drink and eat, watching a movie on my computer.
After 10 minutes, my salad is gone.
I pause the movie, get the leftover beets from the fridge, drizzle them with more vinaigrette.
I eat them.
My stomach swells a bit. I notice it.
The crazies will win tonight.
This is the last thing I think before I lose myself.
I need to eat.
I need bad food.
I need a lot of it.
I grab a box of graham crackers. Oh, the graham crackers. How I've missed them, those old friends who fill me up. I eat the entire thing in giant, reaching handfuls. The crumbs coat the sides of my mouth, run down my neck.
I need to eat.
The box is empty, so I set it down next to the picture frame and return to the kitchen.
Pretzels. And mayonnaise. An entire bag, an entire bottle. I forget that I don't eat pre-made mayonnaise anymore. In culinary school, I make my own. I make my own mayonnaise, and I eat it with hand-cut French fries, with thick, crusty rye bread laced with caraway seeds. Not tonight. Tonight, I spoon it into my mouth with stale pretzels, because I have let them win, and because I need to eat.
Corn chips. Plain.
My throat hurts, and past experience tells me that I'll have to drink something soon if I want to be able to rid myself of these mistakes. I drink three glasses of warm water from the tap.
Ice cream. Cherry, with chocolate. I don't care about the cherries, I don't care about the chocolate.
I put a half gallon in the microwave and warm it until it becomes a soupy mess. I eat this with a spoon, with a serving spoon because I need bad food. I need a lot of it.
A leftover pancake, crumpled in my fist, shoved into the back of my throat. Why chew?
More water.
I can't eat anymore.
I stagger to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. There I am. Rochelle. Remember? Culinary school? Rochelle?
I make a face in the mirror and remember. I want to become normal again, and the quickest way I can think to do so is to get rid of the crazies I have willingly inserted into my body.
I throw up everything, on purpose, with force.
It's been so long, but I know my body and remember this with shocking precision. I remember what it feels like, when all I'll get up is a few shreds of lettuce and when I have handfuls of pretzels to go.
Leave, leave, leave me alone. Get out of my body.
The ice cream is still cold! It's shockingly cold, but it's smooth and it soothes my throat. Your love is better than ice cream. Better than anything else that I've tried. I'm performing an exorcism, and isn't it easy? It's not fun, but it is easy, and I guess I've forgotten how simple, how seductively simple it all is. I've also forgotten how much it hurts my heart. It hurts my heart.
Once done, I turn on the shower and stand on the bathtub so I can properly study my body in its entirety. Ribs, I can see the ribs. I twist my body to check; it looks pretty much the same as it did two days prior. But all of a sudden, I don't care so much.
I stand under the water, trying to cry. Why won't tears come? I want to taste them, to feel them coating my cheeks. Instead, I scrub at my nails and hands with yellow bar soap.
I brush my teeth, drink two glasses of water and lay down on the floor, touching my stomach in attempt to anchor myself.
It's a long way down. It's a long way down to the place where we started from.
In my haste, I had forgotten that submitting to the crazies doesn't make them go away. I don't feel like myself. I don't even feel thin. But I do feel relatively empty, and for tonight that just might be enough to fool me to sleep.
Chowder
At the farmer's market yesterday, I made the man at the fish stall describe each piece to me. "Swordfish, tuna, hake ..." On and on it went; he had a variety.
"Hake?" I repeated when he was done. Hake was one of those fish I'd seen only in print - never had I dared to say it out loud. (I always assumed it was pronounced oddly, like "ha-kay," but wasn't sure and didn't want to make a fool out of myself.)
"Yep, it's pretty similar to cod, but tastier, with more flavor."
I looked quickly at the plump, almost fluffy meat. "Wow, sold."
The last time I cooked cod, I tried to pan-sear it and top it with a creamy mushroom sauce. Well, I didn't know how to make a cream sauce, and the fish flaked and broke all over the pan. The make-shift sauce was thin and slippery, and it didn't coat the fish so much as it pooled unattractively underneath it.
Keeping all that in mind, I thought it best to work with the fork-tender flakiness of the fish, rather than against it. What about a thick, creamy chowder, teeming with chunks of hake? It was almost cold enough outside to warrant the soup, and the best part was that I knew just how to make it.
A Rough Recipe for Hake Chowder
A good sized plop of butter
A good sized sprinkle of flour
Half a medium-sized onion, diced
1/4 fennel bulb, diced
4-5 red potatoes, peeled but not rinsed, cut into bite-sized chunks
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 dried bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1 full fillet of hake, or 2 if they are very small
2 tablespoons whole milk
Salt, pepper
Fresh dill, chopped
In a pot, melt the butter and add the onions and fennel. Sweat them until tender but not browned. Add just a bit more butter to the pan, and sprinkle flour over, stirring to coat the vegetables with it. Cook for 2 minutes more. You're creating a roux which will thicken the soup.*
Add the potatoes (make sure the pieces are small enough to fit on a spoon), stock, bay leaf, thyme and sage. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender - 10 minutes or so. Maybe 15. The potatoes will release a fair amount of starch, further thickening the liquid and rendering it creamy.
Cut the fish into chunks and add to pot. Simmer them - do not boil - until opaque and flaky. Stir in the milk, remove the bay leaf. Season well. Ladle into bowls and top with dill.
*I realize that some purists will not want to thicken their chowder with a roux, preferring instead to rely on the potato starch.
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