Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!) (8 page)

My host mom, Silvia, was the opposite of both my parents in so many ways.

My dad started smoking in his late thirties, I assume around
the time he started seeing Dolly, since he was
not
a smoker while with my mom.

When I still lived in Saegertown, if I needed to talk to him, I would knock on the always-closed door to his study and call his name.

“One minute!” he would say before opening the door, coming out, and shutting it behind him. “Yes, Honey Bun?”

Of course, I could smell the smoke. I could always smell it, but it wasn’t until I’d found a pack of Marlboros in his leather coat pocket during the last year I lived there that I knew for sure Dolly wasn’t solely to blame for the pervasive stench. And though I was confused and upset, I never approached him about it. Not once.

Silvia, on the other hand, had smoked since she was a teenager, and though her sons didn’t like the habit, she did so openly and unapologetically throughout the house.

On the days my mom worked, she would come home deflated and exhausted, annoyed that Bruce hadn’t done anything for dinner, not even called for pizza to be delivered, whereas Silvia came home from work almost joyfully with an armful of groceries, which she would set down before pouring herself
un Gancia
—her favorite brand of vermouth—turning on some music, and dancing around the kitchen as she began to cook. Inevitably, as she danced, she would raise her arms above her head, revealing her tanned fifty-year-old belly, a small act but one that always surprised me sheerly because of its lack of self-consciousness. (As far as I knew, my own mother had no midriff.)

While my dad was an outspoken atheist and Mom and Bruce were outspoken Christians, Silvia was neither. She didn’t go to church; she didn’t talk about God, yet every night, she slept beneath a giant crucifix, which hung on the wall above
her bed. (This bed, by the way, was located a mere four feet to the left of my own—a proximity I got used to only because of how comfortable Silvia was with it: she undressed each night right in front of me and climbed under the covers with a sleepy
“Buenas noches, hija.”
)

And while communicating was not a high priority in my family, Silvia was a
sharer
. She told me about her divorce, her current boyfriend, about her sons and their girlfriends. And when I became interested in the recent economic crisis everyone seemed to make a point of telling me about, she told me story after story; how she would be shopping at the grocery store and the price for milk would be changing
as
she shopped, how despite having a good job as a professor of engineering at a nearby college, she couldn’t plan for the future, how the government had frozen everyone’s bank account so that she couldn’t withdraw more than $200 dollars a week, and how she had no choice but to start living day by day—
día por día
.

The longer I lived there, the more this kind of approach to life rubbed off. Because without making a conscious effort, I began to relax about my future, about the fact that my plans began and ended in Argentina, that I had nothing lined up and no school to enroll in once I got back to the States.

And what do you know? Relaxing suited me. Because unlike my tense time in Madrid, during which I hardly added one new word to my Spanish vocabulary, a few months into my stay in Rafaela, I was speaking Spanish with ease—sometimes even writing in it in my journal. And unlike how I was in college, seemingly unable to date someone without thinking about our potential as a long-term couple who shared the same religious beliefs, I casually dated a few Argentine guys, one of whom drove me around town on the back of his motorcycle.

Most shockingly, also without making a conscious effort, I finally stopped counting the calories I consumed each day. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t begin to fathom how many were in Silvia’s
milanesa
or her vanilla cake with dulce de leche, or the tiny buttery biscuits my youngest host brother, Adrian, and I snacked on together around four o’clock each day. Or perhaps it was because I was enjoying myself too much to ruin it with round-the-clock tabulating.

But whatever the reason, the result remained the same: I left Argentina much less confused, with a stronger sense of self, and, ironically, with looser-fitting clothes.

In fact, I had assimilated so well that at the end of the semester, when the program director asked me to stay on for the summer, I came very close to saying yes. But in the end, I had to admit that I missed my life in the States. Or, rather, I missed the life I could potentially have in the States. Matt was back in Pittsburgh. He and I had been writing letters to each other for the past few months, so I knew that he’d given up on finding a job in New York, but that as a young up-and-coming director “to watch,”
Esquire
magazine had chosen him to shoot a short film based on a story they owned the rights to, that he was being featured in the magazine, and was planning on moving to Los Angeles in the fall.

Most of all, I knew I wanted to see him before he left.

I may have come home with an Argentine frame of mind, but logistically, I was in the same place I’d started over a year earlier: the guest room of my mom and Bruce’s townhouse, and yes, waiting tables at Aladdin’s.

No, that’s not entirely accurate. Things were worse.

Having sold my car before I’d left, now I rode my orange mountain bike through the August humidity and the notoriously hilly streets of Pittsburgh to the restaurant and back, dressed in my polyester black work pants.

In fact, things were
much
worse. While I was away, as it turned out, Matt had begun seeing Jessica, the manager at Aladdin’s Eatery—
my
manager. And while Matt’s and my bizarre seven-year courtship had occasionally included a third wheel, never before had the third wheel been me.

Down and Out, Period
. That was the current title of my Orwellian memoir.

But there is a clarity that comes in hitting rock bottom—perhaps a very desperate kind of clarity, but a clarity nonetheless.

I set three goals for myself.

While in Argentina, I had devoured Rainer Maria Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet
, a collection of Rilke’s letters giving advice to an aspiring young writer and fan of his who had contacted him seeking just that. Very much inspired by this idea and in the service of goal number one, I decided I would send postcards, thirty of them in thirty days, to be exact, with thirty different comedy sketch ideas to
Saturday Night Live
’s head writer, Paula Pell. Who knew? By the end, maybe she would offer me an internship or something.

The whole thing makes me cringe now: the fact that at least some part of me thought this stunt was clever enough and that I was funny enough to bypass all of the hard work
that comes along with becoming a comedy writer; my strategic choice to send the postcards to Paula Pell rather than Tina Fey (as I reasoned that Paula would have less fan mail and thus might be more affected by an aspiring writer looking to her for guidance); and, not least of all, the individual postcards themselves, some of which weren’t even sketch ideas but rather made-up, absurd accounts of what I’d done that day.

After the very last one, I sent her a cover letter and my résumé inside a standard business envelope.

Matt was having a better go of it:
Esquire
had chosen his film as one of their three finalists and would be throwing a party in New York, where they would screen all three and announce a winner. And as the date of this party fell on the weekend of my twenty-third birthday, I convinced Matt to take
me
as his date instead of Jessica. And though Matt didn’t win the contest, the trip was a success for me, standing forever as the marker of the beginning of our relationship as adults.

And as for getting out of Dodge?

Well, the good people at
Esquire
had found it in their hearts to have a West Coast celebration as well. And since a few agents in Los Angeles had expressed interest in representing Matt, he planned to drive out there in time for the party, and then to stay in Los Angeles and see if he could find work as a writer/director.

I didn’t love the idea of following my brand-new boyfriend to Hollywood, but I also knew I wasn’t going to become a comedy writer living in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, even if Paula
did
get back to me (a scenario I’d yet to rule out). So, I made the not-so-tough decision to hang up my hummus-stained apron (once again), hop into Matt’s Hyundai hatchback, and hit the road.

Down and Out in Hollywood
? No way.

Remove the paper label from the can of sweetened condensed milk and submerge the unopened can in a large, deep pot of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer
for 2 hours, adding water as needed to keep the can completely underwater.

While the can is simmering, make the cake.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch cake pans, line the bottom of each with parchment paper, and then butter the paper as well.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until well combined, 2 to 3 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at time, letting each one fully absorb before adding the next. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for a bit longer. Keep the mixer on low and gradually add the flour mixture until it’s completely combined. Add the milk and vanilla and beat the mixture on medium speed until just combined.

Divide the batter between the two pans. Smooth the tops with the back of a spoon. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 28 to 32 minutes. Let the cakes cool in their pans on wire racks for about 15 minutes, then turn them out onto the racks to cool completely.

When the can of sweetened condensed milk has simmered for two hours, use tongs to remove it carefully from the simmering water and let it cool for about 10 minutes. Carefully (again), open the can and scoop the dulce de leche into a bowl: It should look like creamy caramel. Whisk until smooth.

Ideally, you want to move straight into assembling the cake at this point. (You want the dulce de leche to still be fairly warm so that you can pour it onto the top cake layer and get some pleasing drips along the side of the cake. The goal is for it to look
rustic
. But
if the dulce de leche is too cold to form proper drips, no worries! Just spread it over the top with a butter knife in a nice thick layer.)

To assemble the cake:

Place one cake layer on a platter. Spread a layer of dulce de leche over the surface. Top with the second cake layer. Finish by topping with the remaining dulce de leche.

Y
ou can use your Spanish!” my mom said, wide-eyed, after I told her about my plan to move to Los Angeles. She and Bruce are practical people, and though I majored in
both
Creative Writing and Spanish, my mom liked to focus mainly on the Spanish.

I nodded and smiled. “Totally.”

Of course, my plans didn’t include using
my
Spanish. My plans included finishing my novel, enrolling in improv classes, and getting a job waiting tables. My friends, who as recently as two months ago, received letters from me from Argentina quoting long passages from
Letters to a Young Poet
, worried that I was going to find Los Angeles vapid and superficial, but when I told them how cool the
Esquire
party in New York was, and how famous the judges of the short film contest were, they seemed to get it.
Oh, Matt is on the verge of super success? In that case, God bless and have fun counting the money!

Within two days, we are in the highway town of Shamrock, Texas, and have listened to enough Counting Crows,
Les
Misérables
Original Broadway Recording, and Built to Spill to confirm our standings as suburban, upper-middle-class, white people who came of age in the nineties. As far as we can see, there are two hotels and not much else in Shamrock. We choose the Shamrock Inn. (When in Rome, right?)

The abundant images of green shamrocks on the hotel’s various signage cannot hide the fact that we are in
Texas
. Our car is the only non-pickup truck in the lot, and a man donning a cowboy hat unself-consciously checks in right before us. In the lobby, a banner touts a
Free Hot Breakfast!
and in the morning, we’re treated to mediocre but
Free Hot
grits, sausage, bacon, and eggs.

We take I-40 west through the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico before heading north to Taos, where we’ve planned to stay with my aunt and uncle for two nights. We arrive at their sprawling adobe house and are welcomed by two grown Goldendoodles and seven of their recently born puppies. My aunt, uncle, and their son, Dylan, have just moved there from Boston in order to expand their business—a book publishing and distributing company focusing on holistic medicine and healing. They are a hippie success story for the books. (And yes, Uncle Bob, my mother’s brother, has a ponytail.)

With all of the space their new southwestern home affords them, my aunt has created the garden of her dreams, from which she has plucked many an ingredient for the night’s dinner. We eat and talk politics—the 2004 presidential election is just a month away—while eleven-year-old Dylan, named after both Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas—occasionally chimes in with his own two cents, e.g., “Conservatives are killing America!”

Speaking of conservatives, my mom has told my aunt and uncle that Matt is “just a good friend of mine,” but they instantly know better. They set us up in the guest room together, and before wishing us good night, give us one simple rule: We are not allowed to smoke cigarettes, though we are allowed to smoke weed. We aren’t “holding,” so don’t take them up on the offer, but thank them all the same. In the morning, we wake up to the puppies, all of which someone has loosed into our room. Matt swiftly picks them up and places them on the bed with us. It’s a good start.

Though my aunt Martha is a soft-spoken, extremely thin, kindhearted product of Haight-Ashbury in the sixties and has always been incredibly sweet to me, she is not someone I would want to get in a disagreement with. So when she tells me that she’s set up an appointment for me to get my eye read in order to help with the migraine headaches I sometimes get, even though I have no idea what she means, I say, “OK.”

And so after spending the morning exploring Taos, Aunt Martha, Matt, and I arrive at my eye appointment, in another simple adobe-style house, separated from its nearest neighbors by maybe half a mile.

Within minutes, a woman sitting on a stool, her legs straddling one of mine, leans into my face like she’s about to kiss me and looks deep into my left eye with some sort of magnifying glass. At this point, I’m assuming that this is akin to having your palm read, and so half-expect her to pull back and tell me that I’m embarking on an amazing adventure. But instead, she says, “You have a sensitive digestive system and more parasites than normal.”

I nod understandingly.

She prescribes me an herbal remedy that will hopefully
help with this. I thank her, and forever after, when Matt looks into my eyes, he tells me that he sees parasites—many, many parasites.

In the morning, we’re anxious to get back on the road. Not because we’re ready to leave Taos, but because Las Vegas, a city I’ve never been to as an adult, awaits.

During the twelve-hour drive, Matt gives me an education in everything I need to know about blackjack. At points, I have a deck of cards and am dealing us hands, balancing the cards on the tops of my legs. But nothing can really prepare you for Vegas.

I’m initially most impressed by the ease of the city. You are driving along this empty desert highway and then, out of nowhere, you are in a city driving directly underneath towering hotels and their neon lights.

In another moment, we have parked free of charge in the garage of the Bellagio and are taking the elevator to the casino floor, but first, Matt wants to show me the Chihuly glass sculpture hanging from the ceiling in the lobby. “Isn’t it cool?” he asks, whisking me outside, where he shows me the giant fountain spouting water in choreographed ways in the middle of a lake in front of the hotel.

But then he can’t wait any longer; it’s time to play some blackjack. And so, with the confidence and fluidity of an experienced expert, Matt is suddenly exchanging two-hundred-dollar bills for a not-so-big stack of chips. He’s sitting on a stool in a semicircle of other blackjack players, all facing the dealer. I’m standing behind him so he can’t see my mouth drop. Two hundred dollars? All at once? What is he thinking? I pinch his shoulder and whisper into his ear, “What are you doing?”

“You have to start with that much. You’ve got to get into a rhythm.”

I stand back and close my mouth. The minimum bet at this table is ten dollars, which I will soon find out is as low as the minimum ever gets at the Bellagio and is the reason why this particular table is full, as the one across from us, with a minimum of fifty dollars, has only one player. So, what is Matt doing betting twenty-five dollars on the first hand? He doesn’t even
have
to bet that much. I cross my arms and grip into them with my fingers, watching as he’s dealt a jack and a ten. The dealer has seventeen. And just like that, Matt has won twenty-five dollars. He looks back at me and smiles. I loosen my grip a little.

In less than ten minutes, he goes down a hundred dollars and then up a hundred dollars. I pull at his elbow and tell him to take a break, but he’s ordered a free drink with the cocktail waitress and wants to wait for her to return. Waiting for his cocktail, he loses another seventy-five. I dig my fingers back into my arms.

Matt looks back at me and raises his index finger. “One more and then we’ll go.”

I nod and watch as he places twenty-five dollars on his next bet. He’s dealt two eights. The dealer shows a six. From the morning’s blackjack training, I know that Matt is assuming the dealer has sixteen and that even if she doesn’t, there’s a high likelihood she’ll bust. Matt then splits his hand, which I also know from my training means he now has two hands and must put down another twenty-five dollars. His next card on top of the eight is a face card. He stays. But the next card on the other eight is a two. He doubles down, which means
he must put down another twenty-five dollars and then he can only receive one more card from the dealer. On one hand alone, he’s bet seventy-five dollars—a night’s worth of tips at the restaurant where I was still working just five days before.

“C’mon! Big card!” Matt shouts and claps his hands together. I look at him as if he’s a stranger.

But when the dealer flips the card over and it’s an ace, I’m the one jumping up and down and clapping. Twenty-one!

The dealer busts, and I can hardly contain myself, fighting the urge to pick Matt up onto my shoulders and parade him around the casino floor like my own personal Rudy.

I beg him to quit while he’s ahead, and as soon as he does, I try to get him to spend the winnings. But Matt has an idea. The Bellagio VIP room, where all the VIPs go to check into the hotel so that they don’t have to wait in line with all of the
normals
, is an unassuming little annex behind two large doors with a gold sign that reads: VIP SERVICES. Most people probably don’t even notice it, but on his last trip here, Matt did, realizing that today’s VIPs
look
just like the two of us, a young couple dressed in jeans and T-shirts who just spent twelve hours in a car. And if you act like you know what you’re doing, everyone just assumes you know what you’re doing.
And
the last thing any casino employee ever wants to do is offend a VIP by asking whether or not you do, indeed, belong in the VIP services lounge.

The services for the very important people include a help-yourself buffet-style bar. And we do help ourselves—to a couple of gin and tonics in sizable lowball glasses. There are snacks too: fresh strawberries, dried mango, chocolate, crackers, cheese, and a wide assortment of nuts. As we step back
out onto the casino floor, I can already feel the gin working its way through my system. The world is our oyster; the future is bright. Apart from my sky-high eye parasite levels, I am the luckiest girl in the world.

“Should we find a blackjack table?” Matt asks.

I smile and nod. “Yes, please.”