kitchen science

We leave tonight for New York, and as usual we don't have plans. I love that about returning to places I used to call home. You can show up, no list of things to do, stay with friends or family, and visit old haunts. Surely we will end up ambling down St Marks, eating at Red Bamboo and Crif Dog, Kate's Joynt, Zen Palate, the cheap bubble tea place named only in Chinese on Canal St... If all of my favorite places seem food-related, it's because they are.

Food is a huge part of my life, but it wasn't always. Growing up, my mom's cooking was not particularly good, punctuated by instances of true mealtime horror. It was a treat when my dad cooked his microwave gourmet meals-- baked beans with hot dog pieces or turkey and mashed potato sandwiches.

I can't think of a distinct time when food became so important to me, but there were at least three key influences. The first is Nate Cook, a unique, energetic friend in high school who opened my eyes to so many things. He lived just off Sligo Creek Park, he had his own car plastered with bumper stickers, and he played drums. He also introduced me to cilantro, the unmapped and unlighted roads through Rock Creek from Maryland into DC, and the now big-time Spanish tapas restaurant Jaleo.

During a summer of travel in college, I spent a week or two outside of Watsonville, CA, crashing with a group of people picked for a special marine science internship. One of the guys, whose name I can't remember but might be John, was an enthusiastic cook and came up with a plan whereby we'd all pitch in to buy fresh ingredients at the farmers market, and he would cook. The only meal I remember is an asparagus fritata, but something about his zeal for creative dishes really rubbed off on me. I think I may have claimed to the group to also be a good cook, which would have been a total fabrication. After leaving Watsonville for San Francisco, I spent the rest of the summer unable to afford more than one meal a day, eating a lot of French bread and tomatoes from the grocery store.

My final and most evident culinary influence is giving up dairy products. When I returned from that summer of travel and got a job as a short-order cook in a health food cafe, I had money again to eat ice cream every day. My usual was a scoop of rocky road and one of chocolate peanut butter stripe from Baskin Robbins. I was so enamored of ice cream that when my second job-- working the late shift at one of the university dining halls-- started back up for the school year, the student manager bet that I couldn't go without dairy for two weeks. Being a stubborn lover of challenges, I took him up on it. At the same time, I had to come up with daily specials for the cafe, so I read many of the cookbooks that were also sold there.

Now I have my own kitchen, garden, and local farmers market; I don't smoke, so my tastebuds are more awake; and I run so I eat a lot more. Food is a favorite subject, so I could go on and on, but one of my far-off, dreamiest dreams is to have my own cozy tea house with no set menu, a relaxing atmosphere, and customers who don't talk to me very much. I'll be in the kitchen.