Montaigne’s Heiress

Voice Version (with extra memories, notes, explanations, easter eggs, etc.)

So I was cooking tonight. Just to get stuff made for the week: I’ve already consumed enough food today. And I started thinking a bit about my relationship to food.

I’ve always liked cooking more than eating. This was as true when I was much younger (7 or 8) as it is today. I watched Julia Child and The Galloping Gourmet and Yan Can Cook on PBS religiously on the weekends between the ages of 6 and 10. (My grandmother got cable tv after that, and I had the Food Network in its very earliest days, before Emeril became unwatchable.) My grandmother hated to cook, and my mother made me quit my modeling career so that she could go back to school for hotel and restaurant management when I was about 8. (My mother, to this day, cannot cook. She’s an awful cook.)

So… my grandmother hated cooking. I can remember that, 3 nights a week, the dinner she made for me and my grandfather would consist of:

1. A hamburger – burnt on the outside, raw in the middle
2. A spoonful of cottage cheese
3. Some indifferent pieces of iceberg lettuce, and a plate of tomatoes with sweet n’ low on them

Not exactly appetizing. The other nights, we got either burnt London broil with the above accompaniments, or chicken breasts broiled in cream of mushroom soup with the above accompaniments. Breakfast was always cheerios. Lunch was always (for me – my grandfather, being a businessman, was luckier) a PB&J.

When I was 8, I started to take over some of the cooking. Of course my grandfather, who for 50 years had eaten the above fare every night of the week, was NOT amused. The first thing I tried was French onion soup with potatoes in it. Of course, being 8, I didn’t know how long potatoes took to cook, nor how to chop them up small enough so that they’d boil quickly in soup. I gave my grandfather the soup with the potatoes still half-raw. He didn’t complain. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Maybe he didn’t notice. The next thing I tried was chicken curry. I set the table very nicely, brought in a few candles, and turned the lights in the kitchen low. My grandmother complained incessantly: she couldn’t see what she was eating (you don’t like the ambiance?) and the curry was too spicy (I used mild curry powder – maybe she didn’t like cardamom) and I served dinner far too late (6:30) and she was missing Brokaw.

There’s no pleasing some people.

To my grandmother, cooking was a duty. Something that she – as “mother” of the house – had to do. No more, no less. Not fun, not an adventure, not a chance to try new things… but a duty. Which she executed with mechanical precision, if very poorly. That is, everything was uniformly disgusting. Brownie points there.

To my mother, however, food was a way to woo me. She would take me out to dinner often. Almost every Saturday. To woo me. To “catch up” with me. I never saw her during the week. She worked on Sunday nights. But on Saturday I belonged to her. She would buy me things and stuff me full of food and try to pretend as though we loved each other. As though she knew me or gave a shit about me. As though everything was alright. Mother was – and is – grossly obese. At least 350 pounds on a 5′7 frame. She has a hard time walking, she’s so fat. I’ve always been chubby too, as I’ve mentioned before. Mother stuffed me from my youngest days. All of the time we spent together revolved around eating. And revolved, more generally, around spending money. The more stuff mother bought me, and the more food she fed me, the greater her love supposedly was. (To this day I feel extremely anxious and embarrassed when most people buy me presents. Or buy me anything. The fact that I did not feel anxious or embarrassed when Jake sent me a book for my birthday just goes to show, I guess, the “quality” of the people I used to know. Jake, I know, was not trying to woo me by sending me a present. Everyone else – from mother all the way up to dallasC – was.) One Christmas, she bought me $1000 worth of presents. Rebecca returned some of them without consulting mother, but mother just went out and re-bought them. I cried so hard with shame for receiving all of those gifts. I didn’t want stuff. I wanted mother. And… the gifts just brought home that I didn’t have her. Ever.

And so by age 11.75, when I moved to Houston with mother, I was dangerously overweight. This aggravated a joint condition that I have – which mother (against the advice of doctors) never did anything about and from which I still suffer what is, on occasion, excruciating pain – and caused me to be ridiculed in school. (I was ridiculed in New York as well, of course.) The dinners out stopped, of course. She no longer had to win me back from my grandparents. For they were 1700 miles away and thus out of the picture. And, of course, mother was poor. She went from being able to blow her entire salary (she lived with my grandparents rent-free and was responsible for no contributions towards either her bills or mine) to having to maintain half a house on minimum wage. (My aunt Elaine lived with us, but was unemployed. They barely scraped by together. The original plan hatched by my aunt Rebecca was to have the two move in together and thus split the costs of the house, ensuring that neither would be homeless. My grandparents wished me to stay with them, but mother wouldn’t hear of it. They were sick of her horrible attitude and her incessant fighting with my grandmother, though. I was present at the conversation in which my grandfather told my mother what scheme had been cooked up, and that she was to settle her affairs and leave their house within two months. This was in October, and we left New York shortly before Christmas.)

In fact… everything ceased. Mother couldn’t afford to buy groceries. At first, she would borrow (or steal) my aunt’s gas credit card and drive me over to the gas station to get what I could for dinner. This food, of course, was invariably loaded with sugar, salt, and fat. Eventually, when she had maxed out the gas credit card, there was no more money for food – or so she told me. Mother worked in a grocery store and so she ate there. I was left to shift for myself. Mother told me I could eat at school, but of course I had no money and no job – and looked too underage to even get a job under the table – and thus, of course, I couldn’t eat. You all know what I resorted to. Curiously enough, I would never steal money from Elaine, as she was the only protectress I really had and I didn’t wish to fall out with her. Mother never had any money to steal. Whenever there WAS money, I stocked up on ramen. And pasta. (A large can of pasta sauce which was good for 6 meals cost 99 cents, and enough noodles for 4 meals cost 89 cents at Wal-Mart.) When there was very little money, I used to scrounge in the couch cushions until I could find $1.07 to buy myself 2 liters of soda. I drank the whole thing in a sitting, of course, and after that was so hopped up on sugar and caffeine that I could go without eating. This, of course, completely screwed up my blood glucose regulation.

Whenever mother got a windfall, she would buy me chinese food or pizza. Instead of saving the $20 that my grandmother would occasionally throw my way, I usually blew it on one of those two things. I told my grandmother in our weekly calls that mother was not buying me groceries. Mother denied this vehemently and screamed at me – after hanging up the phone, of course – for telling lies. Then the calls with my grandmother dropped to once every 2 weeks, and she sent no more money at all.

Whenever mother would go grocery shopping, it was always a $300 blow-out affair in which she would buy – not nutritious stuff – but junk. When I complained, she told me to fuck off, and that there was plenty of stuff to make a meal with. Of course, all the fresh food was gone within a week, and it took 2 months in between mother’s urges to go out and spend money on groceries. Sure, mother, there’s plenty of stuff to make a meal with. Let me just heat up my ramen and wash it down with this here 2-liter bottle of soda. Real nutritious. What a great mother you are.

So to mother, food was a means of control. She would woo me with it. She would withhold it. She would make me beg. Food wasn’t nourishment, or love, or even… duty. It was control.

To me, food was love. And it was the only “love” I had. Whenever I went over to Kay’s house as a young kid (between 6 and 10) I would invariably eat dinner with her. She was an old-age pensioner living on Social Security, but she usually shared with me what she had. Chicken cutlets, or – wonder of wonders! – spaghetti. I liked Kay’s spaghetti. I liked Kay. She was the only adult who ever really paid attention to me, and allowed me to be a kid in her presence. And I responded by adoring her. Talking with her by the hour, and listening to her stories. Playing cards. Listening to her play the organ and sing. I tried to pick out tunes on the organ – I had “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” (the song she was named after) – memorized. I don’t think I could play it now.

And then I’d march up the road at about 5:30 for a second dinner. I couldn’t always finish what my grandmother gave me. At such times she would call Kay and ask if I’d eaten with her, and then chide me for eating two dinners. At the time, of course, I thought it was all about the food. Kay’s food was better than grandmother’s. But of course it wasn’t. Mother had tried to instill in me that food equaled love. And though the fare was humble, I liked Kay, and that added an uncommon flavor to the food. As the Biblical proverb goes: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” So I ate my dinner of herbs with Kay, and went home to the stalled ox at grandmother’s. The herbs imparted more relish.

I wanted love, of course. I needed to construe my grandmother’s duty as love. I wanted love, in the form of food, from the adults in my life. Kay was a little older than grandmother… and she was better to me than grandmother. And she gave me that love, and – though she was poor – that food freely.

When I moved out of mother’s house and in with roommates, it was much better. I had a little money, and threw dinner parties when I could. Just me, my roommates, and a mutual friend. Four around the dinner table. Of course, I served only the best. The guests raved. And, more importantly, I felt love in those gatherings. I enjoyed them. Not only the praise, of course, but the convivial atmosphere. But most importantly of all, I never needed to do the dishes.

The man of the couple that I lived with, Stephen, was a manic depressive and – though I was never fully told by his wife – I believe him to have been schizoid as well. As his illness grew worse and he took his medication less and less often, he would stuff himself with ever-growing quantities of food. The dinner parties stopped. No one was allowed into the house in his depressions, which grew ever worse and worse. The quantities of food he consumed grew ever more obscene. I was sick – revolted. But our pathologies intersected. I did not, however, cook for him any more. For I wanted love, NOT to feed into someone’s depression and self-hatred. Or so I thought. Then I left.

When I started living alone, the highlight of my week was grocery shopping. I would comb specialty food stores and high-end markets for interesting-looking foodstuffs. Most of which, mind you, I never ate. I just liked shopping for food. Handling it. Judging it. Imagining what I could do with it. Not to nourish myself or anyone else, but just for its own sake. I would spend Saturday mornings watching the Food Network. Good Eats. The Barefoot Contessa. All of those shows. Food as science. Food as status. Food – as with Emeril, whom I had ceased being able to stand – as showmanship. I brought food to Tom when I could. He liked to eat, but he enjoyed cooking himself. Liked the artistry, and would praise me for a well-made dish. I liked watching him eat.

I liked watching most people eat. When I went up to visit a “friend” called C in Missouri, the morning after the first night we met was spent in a diner. I wasn’t hungry. But I watched him eat. With some fascination, actually. The same with most other friends. I usually wasn’t hungry – I’m usually not, even right now – but I enjoyed the sight of them enjoying their food. Of taking pleasure in something. I’d be interested in watching a painter work on a canvas in much the same way. It was a sort of vicarious joy. Food – done artistically, with love – being consumed by its intended recipient. Enjoyed. Savored. Or… I always imagined that they were savoring it, my friends. I always imagined that they thought of where their food came from. What it meant. That they had the same associations, the same love, the same pleasure in seeing the pleasure of others.

When I didn’t have anyone to share food with (the first 3 or 4 months I moved up to Dallas, when two of the 3 people I knew there had moved away, and the third was off-limits) I was depressed. Not just from not having anyone to share food with, mind you, but from having no one to love and no one who loved me in general. But I’d think of my loneliness most acutely when I stood in the kitchen of the new apartment that I loathed, cooking. I didn’t cook because I was hungry, but to fill a void. And when the food was ready I would either put it in the refrigerator and forget about it, or throw it away right then, or eat it. And I would eat savagely. To punish myself. With tears in my eyes. And I hated the food and my skill in preparing it and the fact that I was alone… and myself. I would make myself sick. (There are tears in my eyes as I type this.) And I would leave the dishes in the sink. Until I could no longer cook in the kitchen. Until I dared not even go in the kitchen. I fouled that temple to love, and only rarely could I be persuaded to clean it. Then, when it got too terrible, I would clean. With bitterness. And think of the meals I’d not consumed – or of which I’d consumed too much – for which I was then paying through my labor. Retribution.

Of course, I was doing what mother had been doing to me. Using food to control myself.

Then, when Jen left Tom and I could share food again, and when I moved into an apartment I liked in a suburb of Fort Worth, I began to eat more healthfully. And to exercise. And I met one new friend. I only had him over for dinner once – I had no table, you see, so I couldn’t serve him properly – but he gave me a rave review. I still remember the menu:

1. Roast breast of chicken stuffed with herbed goat cheese and shallots.
2. Roasted spiced potatoes
3. Arugula and warm pear salad with honey-lemon vinaigrette
4. Asparagus with lemon and persillade

And some other things. I didn’t eat a bite. I wasn’t hungry. Just sat and watched him eat and admire my cooking and praise me. I was wooing him with that dinner.

Of course, I’ve been wooing everyone I ever cooked for. From C (the Dallas C, not the Missouri C) to my medieval history professor from my first attempt at college when I was 18 to Tom to my parents to… oh, everyone. Please eat. Please enjoy. Please admire my skill. Please praise me. Please love me. Please let me know that I have the power to give you some pleasure.

What is different now? It’s rare for me now to cook when I’m not hungry. (Unfortunately, it’s not rare for me to eat when I’m not hungry, since my hungry/full signals are so fucked up.) Occasionally I will cook things it turns out I don’t want to eat. At such times I’ll give them to my roommate, who seems to enjoy them. Tonight, though, I asked her to taste some lentils I had prepared. I knew they were excellent, but… I wanted her “feedback.” Or, no. Her praise. Why does it matter?

Of course, I don’t feel loved. I still feel like it’s a one-way street – love or regard or care or friendship goes out… but usually it doesn’t feel like it’s coming back from anywhere. Sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes I feel loved. Maybe it will get better. I think – or… I hope – it will get better.

But… praise for my abilities isn’t the sort of regard I want. I don’t want to have to woo people – or feel I have to. But suppressing the symptoms – or trying to – isn’t the answer either. What’s the answer? I don’t know yet. Or, sure I do. Love myself first. The Catholic Church supposedly has a (spiritual, not actual) vault containing the unlimited virtue of Jesus Christ and the saints. This was the basis for the medieval and renaissance practice of selling indulgences. Well… I need to have a vault of virtue too. Not to sell or give away – or, maybe eventually to distribute to my dear ones where I receive a trade of their virtue in return, so the amount in neither of our vaults is ever diminished – but… to have. To have that virtue – that treasure – within me. And the dividends that that treasure in the vault pays is love. Love of self (not in the way of narcissism) and true love of others.

So… there’s my relationship with food. Now you know.