I’m here, I’m here!
It’s almost the end of the month, which means my arbitrary self-imposed deadline of writing to you is upon us.
February has been a whirl and a half, per usual. Ranging from a quick stay at a Benedictine monastery guest house, to birthdays, weddings, stomach bugs, airplanes, and a full-blown seven days and nights at none other than Walt Disney World, I’m catching my breath after the last few weeks.
It’s been a lovely few days of Fake Spring/February Summer, with glowing 80 degree temperatures. Today it’s 42 degrees XOXO love you Oklahoma.
I love being a mom, but I also have to yell things like “MY WORK MATTERS TOO” and “PLEASE STOP TOUCHING ME” at my children while I’m trying to take a few minutes to put together this newsletter. And that’s sort of what I’m exploring in this month’s essay.
Thanks as ever for sticking around. PS — I’m pausing paid subscriptions for the next month, because to quote Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas, “Isn’t it awful, it’s like taking money under false pretenses?” All that to say, number one, White Christmas has literally a quote for every circumstance in life don’t argue with me on this, and two, when I am writing enough to merit asking for any kind of dollars, I’ll let you know.
Allison
If I haven’t met you In The Flesh, I’m Allison. I live outside Oklahoma City with my husband Mitchell East and our two precious children. I am an editor and book designer and a home chef, among other things. I run a small bookish agency called North Parade Press. My work here on Substack often explores the intersection of food and faith and literature.
The Journal: Hail Caesar
I love the absolute thrill of coming down to the wire. Frizzled hair, dripping sweat in my kitchen, a crazed look in my eye as I’m skibbling around trying to set the table for company but more importantly—I mean truly of the upmost importance—I am trying to get the salad dressing to emulsify.
I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself with about 25 minutes til your guests arrive trying to make Caesar dressing. I find myself in this situation not entirely infrequently. But as the minutes ticked by, I remembered I got myself into this mess.
Earlier that day, I decided to venture out to a more artisanal grocer because the Walmart lettuce just does not cut it sometimes. A good salad demands good lettuce, and I couldn’t risk floppy romaine. So off I set to Uptown Grocery a few hours before my impromptu pasta night. Except I conveniently stopped by an estate sale in midtown Oklahoma City, a mere twenty five minutes away. I bought some adorable red checkered napkins and out of almost sheer instinct, I procured a set of framed art prints of Royal Albert Hall and Westminster Abbey. God save the frickin Queen. After this detour, I was closer to Trader Joe’s than Uptown Grocery, so I thought maybe just maybe TJ’s greens would be sufficient.
When I walked in and saw probably 250 people in line by my modest estimate, I immediately walked out, swore a blood oath to never enter another Trader Joe’s in my life, and drove myself to Uptown Grocery like I knew I should have done all along.
I finally made it home with my bushel of lettuce and my treasures worthy of the National Gallery, and it was go time. Over the course of a few hours, I ticked off my other to-dos but with half an hour til my guests arrived, the Caesar dressing remained. I have a go-to recipe from Molly Baz, except I don’t really follow it because I’m not planning on hand whisking my egg yolks with drop by teeny drop of oil. Call me a fraud, but I’ll take the immersion blender for two hundred.
So anyways, I have this recipe, and I chuck everything in a Pyrex measuring cup. Egg yolks separated, and yes, I poured the superfluous egg whites down the sink because it’s not like I had time to whip up meringue, we are on the clock people! Garlic smashed, dijon scooped, lemons zested, anchovies smushed on the edge of my knife. And then like a total absolute loser, I poured in the full cup of canola oil and tried to let the immersion blender whiz it up into mayonnaise.
Here’s the problem. Pretty much everyone in the mayonnaise circles will tell you a) don’t throw all the oil in at once, or b) if you do that, slowly ever so slowly raise the immersion blender so that it works from the bottom up and emulsifies the oil with the egg yolk as you raise the blender.
Maybe it was the time crunch, maybe it was an underlying subconscious belief that I don’t always have to play by the rules of emulsification, but I poured in all the oil and had no regard for the speed at which I raised the blender.
I’ve made enough Caesar dressing to know when it’s not right.
And it, reader, it was an oily mess.
The blender was whirring away to no avail, and naturally I was peppered with thoughts of self doubt. Are you normal or do you tell yourself things like, “If I cannot get this dressing to be smooth and luscious and perfect, I am obviously a failure.”
Here is why this line of thinking is highly problematic. I could have just bought a bagged Caesar salad and no one would have ever thought one iota less of me.
The situation was not improving, so I tried to throw everything in the Vitamix in a moment of desperation. Surely an appliance with enough horsepower to drive a golf cart up a medium sized hill could salvage the Caesar. I let her rip for a while, but was still left with my split dressing.
Almost defeated, I did the last thing I knew to do.
I called upon the ghost of Julia Child and her entire French Chef episode on mayonnaise.
“All you have to know,” she begins, “All you have to know is about understanding the egg yolk.”
Well I guess I fundamentally misunderstand egg yolks. Oh Julia! Help me!
Time was ticking and the kitchen appliances had proved to be zero help. I didn’t even have time to rewatch the episode, so I conjured up Julia in my mind, the angel on my shoulder. I knew the whisk was my only remaining weapon. As I recalled, she also mentioned dijon mustard can help a split mayonnaise emulsify, so a bit more dijon was in order. I added another teaspoon to the large metal bowl and began whisking my heart out. Hope was on the horizon. I could sense that my sweet little egg yolks were so close to giving way to emulsification.
All around me, my children were running around, Mitch was doing dishes and cleaning the floors, and I’m still in leggings and a T shirt covered in some kind of sauces, who even knows.
It’s a bit hypnotic and even cathartic to whisk something with the whole of your person. The metal balloon of the whisk whooshes feverishly around the bowl.
And it feels something like this.
I’m here in this house in Oklahoma, in the kitchen with white linoleum floors that are destined to send me to the nuthouse, trying to find the kind of friendships we left behind, trying to host dinner parties for pretty much strangers, trying to prove myself a chef and entertainer, trying to nurture my children’s culinary sensibilities, trying to eat organic beef, trying to keep the budget, trying so very hard to make motherhood feel easier than it really is.
But yeah, it’s just about the egg yolks.
I probably could not articulate all those things in the moment and motion of whisking. I really was preoccupied with producing a proper dressing. Upon further reflection, this flurry of split oil and water is what I can feel like. Ingredients thrown in a huge bowl. A picture of a finished recipe in mind. All kinds of attempts to coalesce into some kind of person who is put together and called a success only to eventually fall back on the reassuring knowledge that Julia didn’t publish her cookbook until she was 49.
There are unfortunately days when I look and the mirror and genuinely think if I can’t make this salad dressing, I’m somehow a bad wife and mom, my business attempts won’t succeed, and I should stop inviting people over for dinner.
I don’t want to think of myself this way.
So the whisk whisks again and again.
I add another egg to try to give the oil something else to hold on to, and for my last effort, I offer up a Hail Caesar.
Suddenly, the yolks give way.
They are swept up. It happens in a moment. The oil coats each molecule, suspended, unified, inextricably bound in a whole new creation. The mess is no more, and the whole is in fact greater than the sum of its parts.
I grab a spoon to taste. Sweat on my brow, I think I audibly let out a yelp of success.
For a moment, I felt such a sense of victory.
I read other women whose writings inspire and often ground me when my own thoughts feel curdled or murky or bogged down in olive oil. And they say someday things do give way. There are days ahead with full nights of sleep, floors with fewer crumbs, spaces for my interests and passions to come together again. But there’s not a shortcut to that end. It’s long days and a heavy dose of effort every time.
I guess I will keep whisking.
I run off to change clothes with five minutes to spare. The doorbell rings. Dinner is served.
The Bookshelf
So far in 2024, I’ve been reading at what feels like a pleasurable and successful pace. With the exception of my children’s occasional television watching, Mitch and I have stopped watching TV at night which is unfortunately the best way to give yourself more time to read.
The book list for the year so far includes:
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers — I LOVED this book. Harriet Vane is a wonderful protagonist along with the ever posh and entertaining Lord Peter Wimsey. A mystery in an Oxford college, this was delightfully nostalgic and clever.
Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin — this was a great read. Colwin’s collection of culinary essays were wonderful to read and I felt very at home in her accounts of her own preferences, recipes, and kitchen habits.
I started reading Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson and I don’t really know what to make of it yet.
I’m now reading You are a Tree by
. Joy’s writings on how metaphors shape how we think of ourselves and the world is an excellent work on the power of language at work in our lives.I am also reading Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. 10/10, cannot recommend enough.
I am also reading Murder Must Advertise, also by Dorothy Sayers. It’s Mad Men meets Lord Peter Wimsey, so can I ask for much more in a mystery novel?
Thanks for tuning in for February. I hope you’ve had a lovely month!
Allison