The Epiphany Question

 

The assignment keeps staring back at me, so deceptively simple.  

"Write a culinary memoir." 

Okay. 

Easy-peasy.

No sweat.

About what?

 

I don't have any culinary memories. I had no ‘baking epiphany,’ unlike most of my classmates. Therein lays the essence of the problem. 

I grew up in a 'reform' Jewish, liberal family to show-biz parents and a brother who apparently resented my existence the instant I was born. Which is to say I had a fairly normal life, albeit a more “dramatic” one. 

As I grew, things became apparent. I was a hyper child, with wide interests and a surplus of energy – which we discovered was because of ADHD. I wasn’t the best listener, but give me something physical to work with and I excelled. My brother and I squabbled like the siblings we were, but age would, in time, bring us close. My parents took us out to eat rather frequently. When we cooked at home, it was usually frozen food that had to be put into boiling water or the microwave, at least as far as I remember. 

I was and am a picky eater. Despite my mother's grumbled reminders that when I was just a little bubbeleh I agreeably ate normal things, like turkey sandwiches with lettuce, my diet began to consist of carbs and carbs alone. A staple meal of childhood - that still brings back memories of friends and play dates - was Kraft macaroni and cheese, accompanied by one or two Hebrew National kosher beef hot dogs. (Not that the fact they were kosher mattered to me, but it was what I grew up on.)

These days, my brother and I like to tease my father about his attitude on feeding us. We'd go to him while our mother was out and plaintively insist we were hungry, only to be told that we'd just eaten three hours ago, we couldn't possibly be hungry again, and we could wait. It is perhaps this that spurred me to learn how to operate those integral kitchen items - the stove and the microwave. The first memory I have of being 'independent' is of the day I attempted to open my first soda can, which resulted in a cut thumb. Undeterred, a few weeks later I put water in a pot, boiled it, and added dried pasta. Lo, the horns sounded; the wall of dependence fell - and I could cook for myself! 

Exhilarating, but after the first months it got old. I could cook. So what? All this resulted in was not having to eat at the same time as my family. Our ‘family dinners’ had been occurring less frequently, anyway. In my case, it practically took a crowbar to pry a book out of the hand unoccupied by a fork.  

I can't remember the first time I picked up a cookbook and thought 'I want to bake something.' I honestly have no idea how this ‘baking thing’ started. All I have is dim memories of not messing up a recipe, ever.

 Step 1: Mix stuff together. Step 2: Bake. Voila, a cake! 

It wasn't like I baked every day, some obsession creeping steadily into my life - hardly. I never baked for bake sales - I never had a lemonade stand either - and the only time I attempted to bake without a recipe was because the schoolmate I was visiting didn't have one. We forgot several key ingredients - like eggs, vanilla, and such - and the cake came out terribly. The experience dissuaded me from trying again.  

In my defense, I didn't have much to go off of. I was a theatre brat through and through, and during my formative years I was also horse-crazy. I was certain that was where my career lay. Perhaps I'd be a jockey, or a breeder, or something. In elementary school, we were assigned to write our own eulogies. If I remember aright, I became something akin to 'the famous horse-jockey who brought jazz back to the youth of the world.’

Age and time strip away illusions. A particularly nasty fall broke my humeral neck (I didn't find it particularly funny), which left me in a shoulder brace for three months, terrified to get back on a horse, and completely aimless. What the heck would I do with myself now? Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I was distracted by my oncoming bat mitzvah and the agony of my days at the Archer School for Girls. 

I occasionally baked cakes for my classmates, only to be criticized for my choices in icing color. If I left a chocolate cake un-iced, I was told in no uncertain terms that it looked like a dog defecated on a plate. I just couldn't win against these girls. 

The next few years became a maelstrom of medication, panic attacks, home-schooling, and massive changes. Nothing I was particularly happy about.

When I managed to get out of junior high, it was time to discuss the topic of what school to go to next. Obviously I couldn't return to Archer, as the combination of vicious bullying and a bad case of the stomach flu gone uncared for during a field trip left the fabric of my mind ripped to shreds. I could barely go anywhere without my parents accompanying me, and even then it was a struggle. 

So naturally it made sense that the next school I went to was my first public school, downtown, and on a college campus. (Insert dry tone and eye roll here.)

Nonetheless, I somehow managed to obtain the right to attend LACHSA, or the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, as a young and fresh member of the vocal department, specifically for opera. At this time I was still suffering from newly developed depression/anxiety and the ever-present ADHD. The effects of medication varied from leaving me convinced that the thought-induced nausea and headache were real to keeping me concentrating, but feeling like the dullest person in the world. 

However, I was happy, because people there were open-minded, quite unlike the ‘Sunset Sluts.’ Physical appearance, sexuality, race, and even what department you were in didn't affect these people's opinions. It was a bit like culture shock.   

Unfortunately, it was becoming quickly apparent that I needed a style of teaching not offered there, culminating in my panic attack at the start of second semester, where the disorganized school made a mash-up of rescheduling - resulting in something I imagine feels much like working through the beurocracy. I wasn’t equipped to handle it. I was yanked out of there, home-schooled, and spent the next year trying to find somewhere for me to go. 

I ended up at The Help Group – a nice enough school, but with the unfortunate side effect that about half of the students were retarded. I don’t say this to imply that the students were simply intolerable or stupid – many were actually, certifiably mentally retarded. Classes were occasionally interrupted by screams from the hallways, and social interaction was always… interesting, to say the least. I was tired of changing schools, and so I determinedly stuck with people I felt were below me in terms of intelligence, trying to remain aloof. I spoke to therapists and went to doctor’s appointments, read books, and watched a lot of T.V. now that I was old enough to understand the shining example of wit that is a well-written sitcom.

What remains notable is that I began to watch the Food Network more and more often. I had heard of CSCA through a program about a chocolate festival, and was growing increasingly curious about exactly how much beauty and elegance – things that were mature, adult, and things that my life was sorely lacking – could be wrought in the hands of an experienced chef. Throughout high school, culinary school nagged at the back of my mind - until it became clear that, sorry, I was not going to MIT because I did not seem to have the aptitude for math and science it required. Engineering was out of my league for the moment. I might as well try culinary school. 

By a massive effort of will I lasted through high school. To my shock, I got accepted and found a way to attend the school of my newfound dreams without financially crippling my family. I suppose you could say I was – and am – in heaven. The funny thing is, I still don’t know why I’m doing it.

So please, don’t ask me the epiphany question.