Issue No. 5: He's Married to the Chef
Plus fallish foods, library economics, and September reads
A blesséd first fall afternoon to each of you!
I am quite chuffed to be on my fifth newsletter, a seemingly small accomplishment, but I’ll call it an accomplishment nonetheless. Thank you for reading, sending in thoughts, and being mildly interested in my interests. I enjoy having this little something to create. If you like reading Editor & Chef, like, share, subscribe, follow me on instagram, you know the drill.
This morning, I walked outside and felt cooler air. I flung myself back through the door and put on a long sleeved shirt to commemorate the day. Evelyn and I went on a lovely walk, and I drank several cups of tea when I came home. It was a quiet morning. Perhaps it was the combination of air that didn’t feel like it was on fire plus a mug full of tea perfectly brewed, but for a moment I felt an intense pang of longing for my life in England. So much has happened since 22-year-old me embarked on that grand adventure, most significantly, giving birth to a human child. There is much to occupy my time these days (trying to keep my precious crawling monster from mortal danger) besides reflecting on my make-believe life as a scholar of sorts. And yet those days, those glimpses of my former self, can catch my eye in the reflection off a steeping cup of English breakfast. It is a curse to be this nostalgic, I think.
Blah, blah, Oxford, blah. I won’t bore you any longer with my dreaming of past lives. Or I’ll at least save it for another time.
On Friday I’m off to New York City for a pilgrimage to my dear friends and to replenish my soul with art museums, long walks in the park, and good food. It will be my first flight since February 2020—also to NYC in the before times. Will I remember how to get on a plane? Who’s to say. It will also be my first baby-free venture since baby arrived . . . *nervous laughter* Adventure awaits! We’ve even got an outing planned to Big Night in Brooklyn — a store for dinner & party essentials. Will report back on this one.
I am also happy to report that my covid taste seems to be mellowing out. I have recently enjoyed some peanut butter (hooray!), and overall, I am not noticing the truly other-worldly tastes I have been experiencing these last few months. Nature is healing.
In this issue, I am happy to present an essay from my husband, Mitchell East, on what it’s like to be married to me. Think mad scientist in her lab + grade-obsessed student + aspiring Food Network star. Or something like that. All I know is that I can whip up a sink full of dirty dishes like no one’s business.
Scroll on for books, what to cook, and my nerdy reading list.
XOXO — Allison
The Journal: He’s Married to the Chef
A Guest Post by Mitchell East
I told my wife that I wanted to write a guest post on her newsletter. The following post serves two purposes. First: to those who find great joy in the art of cooking, this post will be informative. If you read, you will learn what it’s like to be married to someone like you. Second: to those who, like me, share a home with a cook, this post will be pure celebration for the amazing men and women who make dinner for us. There will also be a few snarky comments. These asides will be minimal.
Let’s begin.
To be married to a chef is to see someone obsessed. From the dining room, you watch her lean over her potatoes, examining the crisp of the skin, the distribution of pepper, and the right color (is it yellow? tan? puce? Only a chef will know). She’ll grab a thermometer and plunge it into the pork tenderloin. Shaking her head and mumbling to herself like a madwoman (“It’s not right!”), she’ll put the metal pan full of dinner back into the oven and restart the timer. The smell makes your stomach grumble but, based on a wealth of experience, you remind yourself that she knows exactly what she’s doing. Because she’s obsessed—and she couldn’t be the chef she is without the attentive care to the minutiae of the temperature of pork.
To be married to a chef is to see guests impressed. My wife and I love to have friends over for dinner. When we first get to know someone, they don’t know Allison is a cook. They’ll come over thinking, Spaghetti, I’ve made that for myself a thousand times at college. Then, they’ll eat spaghetti made by Allison and they will ascend into the third heaven. They will be, in the words of St. Paul, “caught up to paradise” and they will taste “inexpressible things, things no one is permitted to tell.” (See 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 for Paul’s visionary experience in heaven. His revelation has little to do with eating, so this reference may be taken out of context. Then again, why do people say the name of God when they’re eating? Maybe I’m onto something here.)
It’s hard to ruin spaghetti or chicken, but it’s near impossible to make normal foods great. That’s the thing about being married to a chef: my wife makes foods that I, a plebeian, call “normal” into something excellent. And our guests find out she can do the same.
Or, they turn the corner into our kitchen and see what Allison is in the process of creating. They’ll see mounds of appliances, mixing bowls, a steaming InstaPot, two red oven mitts burned black on the end from overuse, and pans—pans galore. What they make on a Tuesday night for themselves requires a plate and a microwave. What Allison makes for her guests requires the travel kit that Anthony Bourdain took on Parts Unknown. Inevitably, guests stare into the kitchen and their faces light up. They know they’re in for a treat.
To be married to a chef is to immediately experience the wonder of what makes someone special. If you’re married to an accountant, you know her wizard brain is able to turn Excel spreadsheets into responsible budgets for a massive company. But you only know that about your spouse in theory. You don’t double check her numbers and think, “Oh wow, she really does know how credits and deficits work.” (Based on my accountant example, you can tell one of my spiritual gifts is not, uh, money-related stuff.) For folks married to chefs, we see their talent on display. We get to taste their meals seconds after it’s plated in front of our salivating faces. I know my wife is great at what she does because I have smelled the pan full of bright yellow corn, grilled onions, and pink-white shrimp cooking together. I know my wife is a fantastic chef because I have tasted the hand pies with blueberry fillings in the center.
On very rare occasions, however, to be married to a chef is to see spiraling disappointment. Twice in our three year marriage Allison has known that what she has made isn’t up to her standards. Let me interject here to say: her dismay is based on her standards, which is like Bill Russell despairing over not having twelve championship rings. What beggars belief (for a simpleton like me) is that Allison knows the meal will be bad before she tastes it. I have no idea what radioactive spider bit her in order to give her these super-human senses, but I promise you, dear reader, that she knows before it’s on the plate.
And the rest of the meal will be occupied by her staring at the food. Picking at the food with a fork. Moving it to another side of the plate. Commenting on what should have been different.
“I shouldn’t have cooked it that long.”
“The recipe called for too much baking powder.”
“Is God real? Does He love us?”
As a note, my wife has never questioned theism out loud during one of these tender moments. But I feel that she has, right underneath the surface.
In my admittedly limited experience with these moments, I have tried to steer us toward invigorating conversations, topics I know Allison loves. To distract her, of course.
“Have you read anything by Madeleine L’Engle recently?” Silence.
“If a wealthy patron offered to financially support us for a year just to get you to write a book, what would it be?” Blank stares out the window to the backyard.
After three or four attempts, I give up and start washing the dishes. I have never put on Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” during one of these dirges. But if you imagine it playing, it fits the scene perfectly.
These sad moments are rare and worth all of the glory of being married to a chef. Because, at the risk of being repetitive, I will tell you again the goods of being married to a chef.
To be married to a chef is to experience the world in four dimensions: length, width, height, and taste. To be married to a chef is the difference between grayscale and color. To be married to a chef is the chasm between looking at a map of Oxford and living there for a year. To be married to a chef is the difference between watching a rom-com and seeing your wife labor for your brand new baby daughter.
Because chefs exalt. They take this maddening array of pepper and paprika, salt, fat, acid, and heat, protein, veggies, and starch, and somehow, make it something more than the sum of its parts. They make a meal, a dinner, an experience with three courses. It’s not longer about function, it’s about fashion. Dinner is not just fuel for the body your soul happens to occupy. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are opportunities for your chef and partner for life to make something mundane into something spectacular.
Because cooking is ultimately about beauty. Successful comedians get laughs; successful chefs hear the audible, “Mmmmm.” Successful painters get rapt attention; successful chefs get closed eyes, a mouth savoring each bite. Successful preachers get “Amen’s” and successful chefs get “Thank you’s.” We know that chefs aren’t trying to inform us about the truth or make us good people, but rather they reveal this strange layer of our sensory world. The painter has a canvas, the musician has her sheet music, and my wife has her oven, her cutting board, and some really good knives. Each time, she’s on the cusp of bringing beauty into the world.
The only response to beauty is gratitude. Which is why, when you’re married to the chef, you know what it’s like to sit down at the table, hold your beloved’s hand, listen to your six-month old rattle in her squeaky high chair in between, and bow your head to pray. If you’re married to a chef, you know you’ll make your prayer short and sweet so you can dig in. If you’re like me, you’ll look around at your guests after dinner and say, “I’m married to the chef.” — Mitchell East
Ok, well isn’t he just the best there is. Thank you, dear, for eating my food and washing all my dishes. Love you.
The Bookshelf
September Reads are going well and I’ve been making more of an effort to read something each day. I doubt I’m going to make my 30-book goal by the end of the year, but I am surely going to try.
The lineup:
First Bite by Bee Wilson — still working my way through. It is SO interesting. If you’re ever teaching a child about food someday, or interested in learning about all the areas of our society that influence how we learn to eat, check this one out.
Dante’s Divine Comedy by well, uh, Dante — I’m loving the #100DaysOfDante initiative by Baylor’s Honors College. I have read the first seven cantos so far. Per the reading plan, there are three cantos a week to read from now til Easter. Each canto has an accompanying video by scholars from universities around the country. This is the nerdiest thing I’m doing right now. And yes, I love it.
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry — Oh Wendell, how do your ordinary sentences move me to tears? I will never understand how someone can write seemingly simple prose so rich in meaning. I love this book so far. Here’s a few snippets of what I’m talking about:
You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.
There is no “better place” than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven.
Persuasion by Jane Austen — I finished this one on audio a few weeks ago, and I am here to tell you that this is one heck of a Jane Austen novel. Oh I just love love love Anne Elliot. I am happy to report that not one but two film adaptations of this delicious story are in the works. It’s about time this one has its moment on the big screen.
Anything else I should add to my list? What are you guys reading right now?
The Newsstand
The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books from The New Yorker
Regarding my reading habits, I utilize the Libby app via my Austin Public Library card weekly. I frequently check out digital titles and have them conveniently delivered to my Kindle. This piece from The New Yorker reveals the backend of this “free” lending ecosystem. Questions of digital rights, who owns ebooks, and how libraries must evolve to meet the growing demand of digital reading are questions that quite literally keep me up at night.
The Great British Bake Off 2021 review – joyous TV that shows no signs of staleness
Bake Off returns! I’ve been rewatching old seasons to celebrate what will surely be a balm to our weary souls. Give me all the signatures, technicals, and showstoppers.
The Menu
Before we depart, a quick word on what’s on the stove these days. Please forgive my ramshackle recipes.
Garlic butter salmon: A nice slab of fish laid atop a thinly sliced lemon, fresh parsley, plenty of chopped garlic, a drizzle of honey, salt and pepper both sides of the fish, red pepper flakes, and pats of butter all the way down. Bake that sucker at 400 for 20 mins, and give it a quick run under the broiler. Serve with roasted veggies and a big ole salad.
Beef Burgundy: Thinly slice up 1.5-2 pounds of your steak cut of choice (I used a mix of sirloin and NY strip), dredge in cornstarch, salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder. Sear it off quickly in some olive oil in your dutch oven to get a bit of a browning on the meat. Remove from pan. To deglaze the pan, add in a full bottle (!) of hearty red wine, two cups of beef broth, quite a few cracks of pepper, a pinch of salt, a container of sliced mushrooms, and a packet of brown gravy mix. Add the steak back into the sauce, put on the lid, pop it in the oven, and bake at 300 for 3 hours. If your sauce needs to thicken up, whisk in a cornstarch slurry at the end to make more of a gravy. Serve on top of white rice and pair with a good green veggie or a big salad. A favorite around here.
Nap time is over and so is my spare time! Love to all. Send in your best fall recipes and reads.
Your faithful servant,
AE