Apron Anxiety

L
et’s be honest. I am not one of those food-obsessed people.

I
like
food. But I am just as happy with a Pop-Tart from Costco as a tarte tatin from Paris. I don’t plan trips around the Tomatina tomato fight or street meat in Sri Lanka. My dreams are without rack of lamb, ramen rituals, or Eric Ripert.

Until recently, I thought truffle shavings had something to do with chocolate, that escarole was escargot, and that sweetbread was, well, sweet bread. My best birthdays involve Carvel, not Bouchon. And even at the world’s best steak house, I am most excited by a clean baked potato and a dirty-minded man, not Kobe, Wagyu, or whatever.

My last meal would be a pastrami sandwich followed by an entire jar of Nutella, not a night at the French Laundry washed down with a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem. I can’t even pronounce “Chateau d’Yquem”! And speaking of which, I am absolutely fine with crappy, even corked, wine. As long as it doesn’t taste like poison and it does make me feel like Penelope Cruz.

Of course I do have some standards—I am not a barbarian or an Olive Garden goer—but I was not, as some might say,
born to eat
. It is not my raison d’être. Gluttony is my least favorite sin. If you were to see me perched on the floor of a bookstore in
Brooklyn, I’d be rolling around in druggie memoirs and prison tales, not Julie, Julia, or Jamie Oliver.

It feels liberating to confess that I once thought “kale” was the name of a rock band, that the Ladurée luxe
macaron
was the same as Passover’s canned macaroon, and that a growler involved a kinky bedroom, not a nice, cold beer. Five bucks’ worth of Manchego at New York’s legendary Murray’s Cheese is not my idea of a cheap thrill, nor is an afternoon of foraging, pickling, or preserving. I’m afraid, Alton Brown, that the etymology of cheddar, chard, and chanterelles cannot keep my attention for all the El Bulli—like experiences in the world. Oh, and I’d sooner discuss unwanted hairs than the meaning of umami.

To some people, food can be better than sex. I am categorically not one of them. No food tastes as good as a great kiss, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll go even further: no food tastes as good as watching
Little Miss Sunshine
in my sweatpants, getting a Thai massage for ten dollars, reading a juicy book on a long train, finishing a spin class without cheating, listening to “Empire State of Mind” while walking the Brooklyn Bridge, or unhooking my bra after a hard day’s work.

Alas, I am sorry to admit that I have had
many
pleasures that far exceeded even the most celestial meal. It’s just that those pleasures didn’t change my life. Something else did—something sweet, savory, and salty … and oftentimes unattractive, overcooked, and underseasoned. The truth is I was accidentally anchored by the apron. It happened “organically,” as in childhood dreams and crazy love, not farm-to-table and Alice Waters. But then again, this is my story about all of that.

E
very morning of my life, my mother has eaten a packaged Devil Dog for breakfast.

She dunks it into milky tea while skimming the
New York Times
, glancing at
Good Morning America
, and preparing for a day of real estate domination. Her “Devils” have been her mimosas, her morning stretch, her sun salutations, and her beloved first lick-of-the-lips for nearly sixty years. She brings them everywhere, from early morning meetings to trips around the world, stashed in leather briefcases, burlap bags, and woolly blazers. She buys them in bulk, hides them from the family (as if anyone would steal her dry, wannabe whoopie pies), and writes letters to the CEO of Drake’s when the taste or texture is “not quite right.” She is, after all, a full-blown Virgo.

It’s an endearing, yet deranged, quirk of hers. Especially if you know my mother. She doesn’t drink alcohol, eat fast food, or engage in anything else that would piss off Michael Pollan. She religiously consumes at least five pieces of fruit, along with a small village of raw vegetables (all locally grown, of course), every single day. It’s not unusual to find her walking home from the farmers’ market blissfully biting into a glistening red pepper or a fat head of purple cabbage, the way one would a huge
frosted cupcake. Lunch for her involves fresh eggs, nice cheese, crispy toast, or some peasantlike variation of such, and dinner is light and often vegetarian. My mother listens so carefully and respectfully to her body and its needs, she’s never had any issues with her weight or health. If you can get past her dirty little habit, you might even call her a purist.

Being a locavore with a Devil Dog addiction isn’t the only trait that makes my mother, and by extension, my entire family, a bit idiosyncratic. My younger sister, Rachel, and I grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a bucolic town where do-gooder Irish and wealthy WASP intersect. As funny, touchy-feely, free-thinking Jews, we never quite belonged in either category, but we liked our uniqueness and had a lot of friends. It’s not like we were mouth-breathing, worm-collecting weirdos; we were just a little offbeat.

For nursery school, my parents sent me to a New Age program at the Unitarian church, where I ate carob all day and splatter-painted my dreadlocked teacher’s Volkswagen Bug. When I was five years old, my mother took us to a production of
Hair
, a mirage of music, revolution, and raw penis; we gave it a standing ovation. By third grade, I wrote screenplays, confessionals, and fan letters to reporters at the
New York Times
. I played Suzuki-method violin and picked up the bassoon because it was so awkward and oafish that I felt bad for it. I acted and danced, atrocious at both, but nonetheless, I was passionate about all my hobbies. I was also wild about shag haircuts, redecorating my room, and winning limbo contests. Naturally, I held several lucrative tag sales, a biannual backyard art installation, and weekly fashion shows of jelly bracelets and bandannas. Everyone loved me or hated me, and so it would go.

But I was prone to trouble, too. At seven years old, I traumatized my parents by disappearing at the mall, only to be found
on the lower level, giving an interview about shopping trends to the local TV news. (A few years later, at the same mall, I swiped Chanel No. 5 from Lord & Taylor and got arrested.) At age eight, a rotten friend convinced me to fake my own neighborhood kidnapping … which got way out of hand, and I felt bad about it forever. Around fourth grade, a rude boy called some new girl a “fat slut” and I slugged him in the stomach, getting me sent home immediately. Around that time, I practically forced our neighbor’s teenage son to whip it out and then pee in a Coke can, which I couldn’t
not
tell the world about, branding the poor kid a “sick-perv” to the gossips on the block. And even before I could spell “adolescence,” I was obviously caught in some filthy rounds of the game Doctor.

The thing that kept me on the side of sensible, even as a young kid, was that I required an absurd amount of stimulation, followed by an absurd amount of personal space. A writer from the womb, I kept countless journals about life, death, and dreamy boys—all of equal importance. Some thoughts were so dark that I should have been committed; others were so frivolous that I could have been on
The Hills
. But there was always that duality: writer with a heavy heart, and wild child with a stethoscope on her crotch.

I definitely didn’t get the badass in my bloodstream from my dad. Edward Shelasky is a gentle, easygoing, law-abiding citizen. He’s a simple Red Sox—rooting, Monopoly-playing, Seinfeld-loving “Masshole,” and the youngest of three children from the lovely and successful couple Milton and Dorothy Shelasky, my grandparents. The Shelaskys had a third-generation uniform business (which my father eventually took over), and they raised him to be quiet, warm, and understanding. In other words, the perfect father to two dramatic daughters. My sister and I may idolize my mom, but we feel as equally
blessed to have the world’s most attentive father, who played with us as kids and listens to us as adults. Both Milton and Dorothy passed away before I turned thirteen, but I adored them so, and I can still taste my grandmother’s luscious brisket and my grandfather’s stash of frozen Snickers. They were wonderful grandparents … even if they always suspected my mother to be a crazy, hippie, gypsy freak.

Laurie Temkin Shelasky, my mom, comes from a struggling, salt-of-the-earth family. True survivors. Her loving father, Lazar Temkin, was a good but complicated man. He died when she and her five siblings were children. Along with my wise, beautiful, ever-resilient grandmother, Dorothy Pava, the Temkin children had many hardships and tragedies, but they survived through endless laughter and fierce loyalty to each other. My aunts, uncles, and cousins are always the first to have my back and are fully responsible for the one thing I know to be true in life—that family is everything. They may not be perfect, but there aren’t better people than the loud, lawless, rambunctious, rough-around-the-edges Temkins.

The Temkins also have a contagious secret language. “P.T.” is shorthand for “poor thing,” like people born without faces, or my shy sister who threw up on every school field trip. “O.D.D.” stands for “odd,” but dangerously so, like the Unabomber or Octomom. “N.G.” is “no good,” like my friend who made me fake the kidnapping. And my favorite is the family motto, borrowed from
The Big Lebowski:
“Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.” This has evolved into any one of us screaming, “I ate the freakin’ bear!” or “Bear Stew!” whenever something goes our way. And for the Temkins,
that
isn’t every day.