| Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant |
[Aug. 30th, 2008|11:14 pm] |
13) Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler (272 pages)
Soon after I returned to the city where I attend school, I rediscovered one of the delights and downsides of living alone: cooking for one. The first two nights, I would have made both Julia Child and my mother proud, whipping up rather extravagant dinners, and eating them with real silverware. By the third night, however, I fell back into my old, comfortable habits of watching dinner in front of the TV and using a plastic fork. For dinner, I simply had a bowl of diced tomatoes with a mixture of cream cheese, hot sauce, and mustard on top. Although I know my mother probably would not approve of this meal, at least I know I am not alone in my eccentric eating habits.
In her essay titled "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant", Laurie Colwin wrote,
"...Cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam."
This essay served as one of the inspirations (and the namesake) for a collection of essays from both writers and foodies on the pleasures (or lack thereof) of cooking alone, eating alone, and dining out alone. The book is edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler, who shares her own experiences of eating unusual meals as a creative writing graduate student studying in the dead of winter at the University of Michigan*.
Many of the essayists have included recipes. These range from the elaborate-sounding "Yellowfin Tuna with Heirloom Tomatoes and Oil-Cured Olive and Caper Salsa" from Erin Ergenbright, to more simple affairs, such as Anneli Rufus's "White-on-White Lunch for When No One is Looking". However, the focus in the book is not on the recipes. Rather, what this book manages to do really well is explore the new meaning food takes on where it is not shared, but prepared and eaten alone. As many of the contributors explain, it can be both a blessing and a curse.
For instance, Ann Patchett remembers evenings when describes her view of eating alone as almost a luxury:
"Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the great liberties of being alone. It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else's tastes into account. Eating, after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste."
On the other hand, other writers wrote that because they view food as an act of love meant to be shared with others, they found it hard to eat alone. Steve Almond wrote that eating alone not only depresses him, but makes him feel oddly guilty. "To lavish such tender energies on a meal implies that it be served to others," Almond writes. As Ferrari-Adler states in her introduction, it feels almost "goofy" to give yourself a present by cooking a nice meal for one, but it is also self-affirming to feed oneself well.
I had several favorite essays in this book, but here I will just mention a few. In "Asparagus Superhero", Phoebe Nobles adopts the word spargelfrau to describe the few months in the year when she becomes a superhero, surviving on asparagus, much in the way that Popeye survives on spinach. Both Jeremy Jackson ("Beans for Me") and Haruki Murakami ("The Year of Spaghetti") write about situations in which their routine of eating for one has taken precedence over dinner with a colleague or urgent requests for help. Rattawut Lapcharoensap echoes the experiences of students all over America in his essay about instant noodles.
This book was a humorous yet thoughtful exploration of an interesting subject. Some of the essays were stronger than others, but I also discovered writers I had not previously known, and I'm excited about checking out their other works. Ferrari-Adler's arrangement of the compositions is very effective in tracing a journey of coming to terms with eating alone. Overall, four stars for both writing and enjoyment.
Total Books: 13
Total Pages: 4,235
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*Go Blue! ;) |
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