Slim to None Page 6

"Earth to Abbie, come in Abbie," William has his hand over his mouth and is making crackling noises with his mouth to sound like the Space Shuttle commander talking to mission control.

  I look over at him and realize that this isn’t a sitcom or a Lifetime movie or even an HBO special. This is really stressful is what this is.

  "What?" I’m not even sure what tack my argument has to take at this point so I’m hoping for a refresher on whatever my husband last said to me.

  "This is the cosmos, calling out to you. Giving you a wake-up call, Abbie Jennings. Wake up and smell the husband. I am over this all—" he spreads his arms out to encompass everything here that must represent his life. "I want something more. Something more than materialism. Something more than sitting home alone yet again while you go off to sample the abundance. Something more than lonely weekends with my dog and not my wife. It’s what I need, Abbie. And I hope you can find it in your heart to figure out how to share this with me."

  With that William turns around, practically clicking his heels in his haste, and leaves the room. The medicine ball’s been thrown back at me, right in my gut. And I’ve got to decide what one does with a nine-pound medicine ball, anyhow. In the meantime, I’ve lost my appetite for my yummy treat. I think I’ll go curl up with a good cookbook instead.

  Roasted Chicken and Fresh Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatos and Basil in Heavy Cream Sauce

  You’ll have to forgive me if I’m guesstimating on this recipe, but I have found that throwing things all together without a lot of direction makes for a more satisfying outcome.

  to roast chicken

  1 3-4 pound chicken (I buy mine freshly-butchered from the farmer’s market)

  A variety of seasonings: kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder, perhaps a little onion powder, a dash of cumin, a pinch of saffron—use your imagination.

  1 stick butter, sliced into 1-tbl. increments

  1/3 c. white wine (for deglazing)

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse bird under cold water, dry well with paper towels. Place bird on small rack in roasting pan. Blend together seasonings in a bowl and sprinkle generously over skin. Carefully lift skin and distribute pats of butter throughout between the skin and the meat.

  Throw in the oven and cook till done, about 75 minutes (generally 20 minutes per pound). The legs will loosen on the chicken when it’s done and the skin will be a glossy golden color.

  When done, remove from oven, use tongs to place chicken on a plate or cutting board. Then put roasting pan on stove, with heat on high just to get pan hot, then splash about 1/3 c. white wine into the pan, turning heat down to medium, allowing the liquid to pull the delicious brown drippings. Turn off heat. You can save this and freeze it to use for gravy some time, or add to a chicken stock base, or even splash some of it into your cream sauce for flavoring.

  for pasta

  3-1/2 c. bread flour

  pinch of salt

  4 duck eggs at room temperature (from farmers market)

  3 yolks (from large chicken eggs, again fresh from farmers market)

  1 tbl. Olive oil (optional)

  *I’m going to give you the food processor version to prepare this as it’s quickest.

  1. Put flour and salt in food processor, pulse to combine.

  2. Whisk eggs, yolks and olive oil lightly and pour into machine while it is running.

  3. The dough will begin to come together but not in a neat ball. If the moisture is correct, there will be a few dry bits on the bottom.

  4. Test dough—add liquid or flour, if needed.

  5. Remove from machine and knead 5-7 minutes until silky smooth. It should be a bit tough to knead. When it gets harder to get the seam side of the dough to come together, then it is usually ready. The dough will be glossy. Wrap in plastic and rest at least 30 minutes.

  When ready to roll flour, dust clean countertop with a couple of tablespoons of semolina flour. A wood surface works best for rolling pasta. Roll out the dough with a roller into palm-sized sections. Feed into pasta machine, starting on #1 and repeating all the way up till it’s at the finest level. At that point, place pasta back onto floured counter, and slice with knife to tagliatelle-sized pieces. The pasta can be boiled immediately in lightly-salted water for about 4 minutes, or can be spread on cookie sheets and frozen, one layer at a time.

  for sauce

  1 cup heavy cream

  1/2 c. sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil, drained, rinsed, patted dry, and sliced into thin strips

  1/2 c. fresh basil, rinsed, and finely chopped

  1 tsp. finely minced shallots

  1 tbl. butter

  splash of reduction sauce from drippings (optional)

  kosher salt and pepper to taste

  Melt butter on medium heat and sauté shallots until soft. Add sun-dried tomatoes, cooking for about 2 minutes. Add cream and bring to simmer, adding basil, seasonings and reduction sauce to taste. Serve over fresh pasta with sliced chicken.

  (serves 4)

  Probably nothing in the world arouses more false hopes than the first four hours of a diet.

  Dan Bennett

  Separate Fat from Meat with Tongs

  The thing about gyms is they really should be manned by overly-large ugly people. You know, the mainstream populace. I think it’s an enormous disincentive to have God’s chosen few, the beautiful people, working at health clubs. It’s merely rubbing salt in the wound to the rest of us. To go to a gym and have to hold yourself up to the standards of physical perfection that work these places—especially in Manhattan, where every other woman is a super model—is really beyond the pale.

  Only reason I’m even here is because, well, I went on the internet last night and there just seemed to be an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing at exercise being an important component of weight loss. I’m thinking if I combine exercise and dieting I’ll double my poundage down. Maybe then I can write my own weight loss journal: Six Months to Thin—Diet and Exercise Your Way into a New Body.

  Actually, I’m just joking. I know this is what you’re supposed to do. But up until this very moment in time, me going to the gym would have be like Arnold Schwarzenegger tasting things in the kitchen at Jean Georges. Highly improbable at best.

  For motivation, I downloaded Arnold’s exercise tape from iTunes last night, and it was so bad it motivated me to go straight to the gym today instead of having to listen to him again. Only now that I’m here, I wish I were back home, just me, Arnold and the kitchen, where I could escape his drill sergeant commands and whip up something yummy and un-Schwarzeneggerish.

  Right now, before me, is a man with biceps carved as ruggedly as the Grand Canyon, and bands of massive thigh muscles that course like rivulets down his legs. With a powerful barrel of a chest that I can assure you contains a healthily-beating heart void of blood pressure issues or fat-clogged arteries. And an instrument in his hand for which I could probably find about ten far better uses in the kitchen than its original intent. Its pincer-like tips look like they’d be great for grabbing something. Just not me. This man is actually trying to calibrate my percentage of body fat with the things. I’d so rather be grabbing a steamed lobster from the pot with them. A bowl of melted butter awaiting me, fresh corn on the cob, grilled to perfection. Maybe a simple baked potato on the side.

  "If you’ll just raise your shirt, I can fasten the calipers on here," he’s saying, pointing at my waist. I’ve got news for this dude. I don’t raise my shirt for just anybody. In fact, I don’t raise my shirt for anybody, period. What’s beneath my skillfully camouflaging outerwear is something no one should ever see. Hell, I don’t even look at it.

  "Mrs. Jennings?" Thor, the personal trainer (I think his real name is Mark, but he looks more Thor-ish to me) asks again. "Can you lift your shirt? Don’t worry, it won’t hurt at all."

  Ha! It won’t hurt, my a
ss! Of course it’s going to hurt: my morale, my psyche, my appetite, my pride. Pain extends far beyond the physical, young man, I want to tell him. But of course I don’t because I’m too ashamed to express my shame, quite frankly.

  "Can’t we just bypass this little step altogether? You can make a rough guesstimate, just jot it down on there and no one will be the wiser? Just between friends?"

  I’m hoping that friends comment will tip the scales, so to speak, in my favor. But instead Thor calls over Jana, she of the quarter-bouncing abs, to do the honors. Jana grabs my shirt, lifts it up, clamps that puppy down on the largest layer of overlapping flesh, then on another and another, and jots down numbers on her chart.

  "There, quick and painless," she says, slapping the calipers back into Thor’s hand, who then gets to work on the rest of me: my biceps, triceps (which I didn’t even know I had), thighs, calves. Even my back fat. Jesus Christ in a handbasket, must they see my back fat?

  After a brief five-minute consultation between Thor and Jana in which eyebrows are knit enough to produce a sweater, I am beckoned forth by Thor, who has a plan of action. The man of action with the plan of action.

  "You’re going to need to start out slowly, Abbie," he says as I take a swig of my water bottle. I haven’t even worked out yet and I’m thirsty. And hungry. A fresh croissant from Patisserie Paris would do my heart good right about now. Better yet, pain au chocolat. I wonder if they make that with Splenda somewhere. Splenda and carob. Pain au caroba, we’d call it. Oh, God, how can I ever diet? This is all just so unnatural!

  "Your body isn’t used to exercising, so you don’t want to overdo it, which will leave you unable—or unwilling—to stick to your regimen. I’ll work up a plan for you to allow you to alternate cardio machines and weights. Before you know it, you’ll be running five miles a day."

  I know this might be a little childish, but that last line elicits a spit-take out of me, and I spatter water on us both. Thor pretends it’s nothing and continues.

  "Have you thought about dieting at all?" Maybe this question is his revenge for that saliva/water shower.

  Uh, no, but for the fact that I’m in such a hurry to lose weight that I feel like a Supermarket Sweep contestant. I’ve got six fleeting months, so I’d better maximize my efforts (and I haven’t the slightest idea how!).

  I shrug my shoulders and wince. I think that gets my message across.

  "So here’s the deal, dudette," Thor says, evidently having just dismounted a surfboard, what with the lingo.

  Dudette. Reminds me of Creamettes—sponsors of Let’s Make a Deal. Remember those contestants who would choose door number three, and instead of winning a wheelbarrow full of cash (sorry, that was door number one), they’d be stuck with a lifetime supply of Creamettes macaroni noodles? Even I would tire of homemade macaroni and cheese after a while. Although maybe instead of cheddar, throw in truffles and some gruyere, blend it with cream from that fabulous dairy in the Hudson River Valley that William and I detour to every so often, now there you have a real meal.

  Thor taps me on my shoulder. I must have drifted off.

  "For quicker weight loss? You’re gonna want to ditch the carbs. Everything white. If it’s white, it’s blight, I like to say. Definitely go for the two-week flush of all carbs from your system. Then slowly reintroduce only complex carbohydrates: fruits, whole grains and legumes. Brown rice and such. Stick to tiny meals, five times a day. Avoid fats. But the bigger picture is figuring out why you eat the way you do, and retraining your brain. "

  Jana, who’s happening by and evidently eavesdropping in, gangs up on me next. "Think of it this way: you know how the snowmelt runs down a mountain, creating pathways for the water to follow? This is the same in your brain: your brain has been conditioned by the same information, the same feedback, for so many years, that it is the only path it knows: this ‘need to eat and to eat hearty fattening foods.’ So it’s your choice: you can have neuro-pathways to the brain that speak to food and hunger and are conditioned to expect fattening foods, or those pathways can be reprogrammed to follow a different course. Does this make sense?"

  Does this make sense? Well, sure. I’m a veritable mountain range of fat-dom. I’ve got a chocolate soufflé pathway slogging through my brain, evidently. Another brownie pathway, no doubt. Brownies on my brain, brownies on my hips, brownies in my gut. So much so that you could probably press my center to test for doneness (I’d rather you do that than stick a cake tester in me!).

  "So what you need to do, Abbie," Thor interjects, "is figure out how these paths started, and then you can start working on changing their course. It’s up to you to figure this out. I obviously can’t be with you twenty four/seven to be sure you’re following my instructions. So like it or not, you’re on the self-guided tour. I’m here if you need advice, I’ll even be here if you need to be talked out of sneaking donuts. And of course I’ll make sure that your workouts when you’re here maximize your weight loss goals. You with me then?"

  Am I with him? Oy. With him in spirit but not in reality, maybe? But I have to be, dammit. I nod, just like I’d acquiesce if someone were about to feed me castor oil because it was good for me. Oh, and p.s.: I don’t even eat donuts. Too plebian. Now if you said beignets, well, that’s a whole different matter.

  "Let’s do it, Abster!" He high-fives me to seal the deal.

  Over the next hour, Thor works me through the circuit of machines. His goal is to find things that I like to do, but that’s pushing it for me. This isn’t about like; it’s about need. If I liked exercising, I’d have done that instead of loading up on desserts, obviously.

  As I leave the gym—oh, wait, I’m told to call it a fitness center—I begin to ponder these "feed-me" paths in my brain. It doesn’t take long for me to find the source of this snowmelt. It all goes back to my parents. My parents and Grandma Gigi.

  My Grandma Gigi was larger than life. Large, physically, a veritable bear of a woman, Gigi provided great comfort to a girl trapped between battling parents. My mother was so obsessed with being thin—and ensuring that her daughter, too, remained thin—that she’d spank me if she caught me eating junk food. Three Chips Ahoy cookies would earn me a hairbrush spanking plus being locked in my bedroom for the night. Coupled with a shrill lecture about how I’d grow up to be as fat as my father’s family if I didn’t watch myself. Already she was calling me the Crisco Kid: fat in the can. This before I even had a fat can. Hell, if she were still alive now, she’d be calling me the damned Crisco factory.

  You’d think after a while I would learn to shun junk food to avoid the punishment, but I was conflicted in a few ways. For one thing, I wanted to reject her cruelty, and so in some ways it forced me to dig my heels in and eat it just to spite her. And then there was the fact that I was getting seriously mixed messages. Food was comfort and love when it came from my grandmother. It was discomfort and rage when associated with my mother. Throw in an absentee father who was—we found out later—too busy dispensing his love and concern to his other family to even bother interceding much with my mother, and you got one very confused girl who sought out love and rebellion with the very same weapon. Food as weapon sounds horrible, though, doesn’t it?

  But my father’s stepmother, my Grandma Gigi, on the other hand, loved me enough for two parents. She lived in the other half of the brick duplex right next door to us and I often retreated to the comfort of her home immediately after school. There she introduced me to the joy of cooking, her kitchen enveloping me in its warmth as pies and roasts baked in the oven. It was in that room as a small child she would read me stories while we waited for treats to come out of the oven, and as I got older, I learned all that I could about baking and roasting and sauces and marinades by her side. I was probably the only six-year old on the block who not only knew what a velouté was, but could spell it. And make it.

  Of course Gigi and I got to eat
everything we made, which was like finally unwrapping that present that had been sitting beneath the Christmas tree for a week. I can’t recall a meal that wasn’t superlative, and I credit my grandma with imbuing in me a rich appreciation for food and for its gift of salvation. Because food did save me: it gave me an identity, kept me from being nothing more than that lonely girl who fell asleep with rolled tube socks secured against her ears to avoid hearing the arguments that invariably ended in the gasping sobs of my mother and the slamming of the front door as my father left, presumably to seek the solace of his better family.

  Food was my happiness when I was growing up. How can food now betray me in such a grandiose manner?

  Gigi’s Apple Crisp

  20 apples (preferably crisp, tart heirloom apples, like an Arkansas Black)

  1-1/2 c. sugar

  1 c. flour

  1 c. old-fashioned oats

  3 tsp. cinnamon

  1 c. butter, softened

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter 13" X 9" baking pan.

  Peel and quarter apples, keep from browning by setting aside in ice water until ready.

  Blend together all other ingredients. Layer apples, crumble mixture, apples and top with thick layer of the crumbled mixture, patting it down. Bake for 40 minutes or until bubbly and golden.

  Me want cookie!

  Cookie Monster

  Blend Wafer Well with Liquid

  White is blight. White is blight. White is blight. My new mantra.

  Do you know how much of what I eat is white? I think I’ve been on the monochrome diet for half my life, it’s so white, white, white, white, white!!!! No, I’ll be clever and call it the Nanook Diet. Because of the blizzard white-out conditions. All I can see to crave is white food, everywhere. South Beach Diet? No way, baby, I’ve been living the South Pole Diet. And loving it all the way. Bring on those Eskimo pies! Oh, but I can’t. Because white is blight. White is blight. White is blight.