All or Nothing Read Free

over the kitchen and it then became my refuge. Watching her at the stove, dressed impeccably with an apron on over her clothes, I could sense that cooking meant more to her than just making food. The way she talked about, touched, and experienced food reminded me of the way a gardener cultivates flowers or a tailor attends to the details of a hand-stitched suit. There was a purpose to Nana Mae’s cooking. She was doing it with love, expressing herself through the dishes she made. As I watched her lovingly wield a paring knife like a samurai brandishing his sword just to cut something simple like apple wedges, I was fucking mesmerized. My leg suddenly stopped twitching, and I sat at the Formica table in awe and homed in on one new desire: to create something of my own in the kitchen.
    From that moment forward I would have moved heaven and earth to get in a kitchen—any kitchen. When I was four years old, I started making up excuses to go to Nana Mae’s house just so I could watch her cook. Once there, I stirred the pot, tasted for seasoning, fetched ingredients, did the prep work, and then had a snack or two until it was time to eat. Nana Mae taught me the foundation of cooking. Watching her, I figured out how to prep, slice, dice, season, and build flavors to make a delicious meal. Nana Mae’s kitchen was a vivid, intense world of new and exciting smells and flavors. To this day the slightest hint of onion reminds me of those beautiful hours I spent in her kitchen, learning as I watched her work.
    Once Nana Mae saw my eagerness to create, she just stood back and didn’t meddle. She was the perfect person to nurture my passion because she left me to my own devices. She never said, “Do this,” or “Do that.”
    For me, being in the kitchen was like taking a Xanax. I finally had an outlet for all of the emotions that were too uncomfortable for me to really feel. I had never known what to do with those feelings. In the kitchen I had a sense of freedom and space and, most important, order and clarity. It was the only time the restlessness within me subsided.
    My early experiments didn’t always turn out well. In fact, most of them were fucking awful. But I didn’t care so much about the results; I just wanted to play with food. The sound of an egg cracking was intriguing; the empty shell was a mystery. I went on a recon mission to learn everything I could about food, especially what combinations tasted good together and what didn’t. I never stopped experimenting. When my family went out for dinner, it was always to the same Chinese place. I put the fried noodles in a bowl with the hot mustard, sweet and sour, and soy sauce and mixed it all together. I called it “kakaballee.” It tasted gross, but I didn’t care. I had created something. At home I took ground beef, which my mom called “chop meat,” and wrapped it around hot dogs to make a sort of corn dog, but with the beef on the outside. Then I cloaked it in bacon and baked it in the oven. It was disgusting. But I loved the look of it and the experience of building layer upon layer of texture and flavor.
    Nana Mae died when I was eight years old, and though I was too young to really understand why, her death inspired me to start cooking even more. My mom noticed this and started asking me to help her make dinner. She laminated a place mat so I could use it to chop vegetables with a small knife and even prepare meals. When other kids were outside playing, I was in the kitchen, helping my mom make dinner or elaborately fanning apple slices around a plate before I ate them.
    Most of my happy childhood memories took place in the kitchen. My dad almost never cooked, but the two things he could make were French fries and pancakes. His homemade French fry days were the best. Joee and I would wake up to the smell of oil and run into the kitchen yelling, “Daddy’s cooking!” My dad would hand me my place