Several of the ladies at work are enamored with the idea of living with a chef and perceive me to be more cultured than they if I eat something like hummus and pitas for lunch. Yeah, it’s pretty great, and yeah, I eat very well, but it also means I get tortured with lots of raw meatstuffs that make me hurl. Considering that my Chef was a vegetarian for over ten years, he’s made quite a turnaround on the notion of a bloody steak.
Living with a Chef entails five primary things:
1) You will spend an extraordinary amount of money on food. On payday your chef might come home with a $50 bag of handpicked wild mushrooms or a bottle of wine with a pricetag that will remain undisclosed. Later in the week you might worry if you can make rent, but goddamn if those pan-fried herbed morels weren’t delicious.
2) You will debate whether to hire a laundry service to do your bazillion dish towels. Additionally, notes like this will never be left on the counter after a dispute over who does the dishes because the chef actually does have a tendency to make elaborate gourmet meals after you’re in bed.
3) If ever called to duty, you can perform major surgery with your kitchen utensils. As a klutz, I have a self-imposed duty not to go in the kitchen when Chef is chopping things, because I inevitably drop something that requires to put my head near the blade or swipe food off the cutting board as he carves a pear into a miniature swan. That knife does come in handy when someone tries to break into your house at night, but that’s neither here nor there. The knives are sharp. Very sharp.
4) Household Progeny will regularly declare that asparagus is “awesome!” They will also know the difference between a medium and well steak, and appreciate a blanched and sauteed brussel sprout over the merely boiled.
5) The refrigerator is dangerous. Your chefly other will leave messages on the answering machine like, “I know you’re going to be hungry after work, but don’t eat the delicious foodstuff in the blue container. I promise you don’t want it.” This will be true.
I envy you. When I did my recent foodstamp series, one of the things I kept thinking of–but never said–was how much I missed the joy of good cooking with fresh, exotic things. I had a friend who was a chef who cooked for me regularly, and I know how easy and pleasing it is to get spoiled like that.
What’s funny is on the nights that he doesn’t cook we’re either eating Ramen noodles or some other crap. This is most nights. Last night I ate some lasagna in the freezer that was so old and freezer-burnt it made my stomach so upset the noises freaked out the cats. I warned Chef I might crap the bed and then I went to sleep.
And then there is the “gain 20 pounds after he moves in” part. :) And that is not unrelated to the “ramen noodles or some other crap” part, but also has a lot to do with “all the things that go so well with butter and bacon” (two of the four food groups, the other two being wine and salt) part.
Actually, yes. I have gained about twenty pounds since he and I started dating. I blame it on the steady gavage of wine, cheese and cream while I’m asleep at night. Swear.
After reading the post above about single mothers (effing brilliant, by the way), I was trying to be more conscious of class-based blinders and prejudices, and honestly, truly did feel about it, but I threw my head back and laughed for like six seconds at your first sentence in this post (mainly the they “perceive me to be more cultured than they if I eat something like hummus and pitas for lunch” part). I sympathize with the klutz around knives part. I’m almost always listening to music and belting out Elvis Costello songs while preparing food, so I purposely use a fairly dull knife, since I’m usually concentrating more on remembering the lyrics to “Clowntime Is Over” or “Jack of All Parades” than I am on chopping vegetables. Inevitably I end up ramming the blade into some fleshy part of my hand or other, and usually escape unharmed. It has gotten rather ridiculous, though. I practically have to jump up in the air and come down with all my weight on the knife just to chop an onion. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.
(Incidentally, it’s odd cutting yourself with a knife because you just feel a brief and slight stinging, then see all this red blood welling up out of your finger or whatnot. Something about it is a little surreal.)
Oh, and why don’t you want the delicious foodstuffs in the blue container?
What’s funny is that we now have His and Hers knives and the Hers knives include “Things Lauren Can’t Kill Herself With While Chopping A Tomato.” Chef sharpened mine and now I’m scared of them.
Incidentally, it’s odd cutting yourself with a knife because you just feel a brief and slight stinging, then see all this red blood welling up out of your finger or whatnot. Something about it is a little surreal.
Word. I’m not usually a fainter but finger and toe injuries scare the shit out of me. And hence I faint. Hence the dull knives.
why don’t you want the delicious foodstuffs in the blue container?
Usually it means some edible meat thing I don’t want to know exists. IN MY FRIDGE.
Oh, like mountain oysters?
Duck liver.
Other problems associated with living with a chef:
1) It\’s awfully infuriating to prepare duck breast with fresh peach relish, only to discover that your intended audience has passed out on the couch and refuses to converse with you, let alone enjoy the food you\’ve spent time preparing.
2) You\’ve brought home some perfectly delicious Cornish hens to enjoy over a long weekend. But you know you\’ll be eating all of it ALONE, because there are BONES involved in this meal.
3) But hot dogs are OK. Ouch.
Chef,
Next time this happens, Lauren can come eat with my husband (who has the same aversion to bones in his food) and I’ll come eat with you.
Re: infuriating preparations with passed out sweeties. My chef once spent nearly a week preparing a meal to welcome me back from a summer working in south america, including various infused oils in delightful colors (beet, curry) to drizzle over a terrine of now-I-can’t remember, with a dessert of cardamon ice cream suspended in a hole in the center of an espresso cake. Of course, I walked in off the plane and said “I’m not hungry after 15 hours traveling… I gotta go to bed.”
Yeah, but as K-Grease said last year on Hell’s Kitchen, hot dogs are slammin’. Seriously, Chef, if you don’t watch Hell’s Kitchen, you should. They’re showing two episodes tomorrow, starting at eight. And there’s going to be an American version (or at least something shown on Fox) of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares in the fall. Whoo hoo!
Mmmm, bloody steak.
I purposely use a fairly dull knife, since I’m usually concentrating more on remembering the lyrics to “Clowntime Is Over” or “Jack of All Parades” than I am on chopping vegetables. Inevitably I end up ramming the blade into some fleshy part of my hand or other, and usually escape unharmed. It has gotten rather ridiculous, though. I practically have to jump up in the air and come down with all my weight on the knife just to chop an onion. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.
Oh, Jesus. You’re going to hurt yourself more than you ever imagined possible with a dull knife and using too much force.
One of my brothers is a chef. At my son’s 2nd birthday party, held at a picnic shelter at the beach, I watched as he took the tomatoes i had brought to slice for burgers and transformed them magically, using a utility knife, into this incredible salsa-thingy which he then marinated the chicken in and all of a sudden we were having an amazing meal versus burgers and dogs. It was amazing and effortless and crazy good.
I tend to cook in terms of “what can we make that will use the least amount of dishes” so it is really cool to watch someone cook to create.
One really neat thing was that when he had a change of heart and decided to become a firefighter (he had volunteered for years)… the big hazing at the fire house was to stick the new guy with the duty of feeding the firehouse. My brother passed this test with little effort.
4) ground beef is really yummy