August 13, 2009 - The Beginning of it All; or, Cook for Your Life, Kate!

Restless. Depressed. Trapped. Withered. Frustrated.

These are all words that I would use to describe myself as of late. Once a balanced and fulfilled twenty-something, with an obnoxious amount of optimism and joy, I am now angry, tired....drowning.

This is an emergency blog for sure.

I know myself well enough to know that I need to balance out my day job as a corporate communications monkey for a very large health insurance company, let's call them OmniSurance Group. It's a great job. A solid job. A job with a company that I'm not altogether sure is at the heart of the decline of society and is at least positioning itself at the forefront of health care reform. Whatever. It's health insurance, and I write about it all day, every day. Zzzzzzz.....beltch! (had onions with lunch)...Zzzzz.....

When I come home after a long and thankless day writing shit I'm sure half of our agents don't even read, I need three things immediately:

1. A sharp knife.
2. Something to chop (an onion, carrots, herbs, cherry tomatoes, bok choy, etc.)
3. A giant class of white wine.

I aspire to be a great cook and writer, and therefore a whole and balanced woman, capable of exceeding the expectations of my co-workers, friends, family and most importantly, my fiance, P.J.

I have humor and heart, loyalty and passion. I am an OK cook. I have OK instincts that are sorely undeveloped. I know a tiny fraction of the foundational knowledge necessary to really talk about food with a bit of credibility. I believe I have the potential to be a great Italian cook, to kick the culinary asses of my father and his parents and grandparents before him (all owners of Minneapolis and Rochester, MN restaurants "Rusciano's"), and to feel accomplished in an activity that saves me from serious despair every single evening. I owe it to the Cooking Gods to be my very best and to challenge myself far beyond my current capacity. Said divine guides give me peace and a feeling of center and belonging that nothing else on earth comes close to, so I want to honor them with the effort and dedication reflective of my gratitude.

I have a little kitchen with a gas range, convection oven, double-basin sink, dishwasher and a drive-up window. It's a one-woman kitchen that looks into our cute dining room so that I can talk to my pals while I make a giant mess. The tools I possess comprise our collective single lives before cohabitation. They've been adequate so far (rusty peelers, distorted/melted plastic Cuisinart mixing bowls, a singular yet beloved wooden spoon, a ghetto knife set and an OK Wustoff knife set), but I'm sure I will need to invest along the way. I know, bummer, right? (Hardly!)

So, that's a little bit of what I DO have. What I do NOT have is one ounce of guilt over ripping off the concept of the memoir and now movie Julie & Julia. The book felt like a gift wrapped and sent special delivery from heaven and its conclusion had me sobbing next to a snoozing P.J. on our trip to his family cabin. This is not a sad book. It's hopeful and delightful and funny and fresh. It also brought up in me such a feeling of inadequacy and envy that I almost barfed. A book deal, a movie deal and who knows what other wonderful things a little ballsie project brought into Julie Powell's life. Plainly stated "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?" And the answer, verbosely stated, is that I'm too busy complaining, too dedicated to procrastinating, too busy trying to sate myself with workouts and chardonnay, and all too comfortable wallowing in the romance of my hopeless professional state, to pull myself up by the apron straps and do something REAL and BIG and FUN!


Additionally, like Julie, I have:

• A penchant for vulgarity
• A job that makes me feel ragged and ordinary
• A tiny kitchen, aforementioned
• Zero talent for or dedication to house-keeping
  
• A dog with an everyday guy's name (her's is Robert, mine is Bryan)
• A mother that freely and directly shares her opinions (because we are very close and I am her baby girl, the only girl with three older brothers) sometimes at the injury of my very delicate feelings and/or at the risk of making me feel like I'm not precisely what she wants and deserves in her daughter (incidentally, my mother has a daughter who does this exact thing just as well and with far less delicacy and good intent)
• The love of a good glass (bottle) of wine or a favorite bevie (Julie of the gimlet, Kate of the vodka soda)
• An affection for cigarettes, the indulgence in which Julie probably kicked and I'm coming up on a year smoke-free myself
• A ticking, tocking, hammering, squawking biological clock and a profound sense of unreadiness for motherhood (which without warning switches to sheer NEED to get knocked up when when I see my friends' kids Riley, Wilson, Caleb, Frankie, Nico, William, Bella, Layla, Sam, Fiona, Brianne, Reese, etc. and the fact that said friends have the privilege of being referred to by the most beautiful word in the English language "mama")
• A fierce and frenzied chop-chop-chop of the onion while rehashing the idiocy and abuses at work
• An impending emotional Armageddon if I don't do something creative and gutsy and difficult FAST
• Writing skills (mine are apt, Ms. Powell's are exceptional)
  
• And probably most profoundly similar to Julie, I too have a loving, patient, supportive, loyal, decent and selfless partner, my P.J. to her Eric, who just happens to be my best friend and most likely has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

Julie Powell writes about Julia Child after her death (this was the line that just absolutely did me in, much like it did the author herself), "And then I wrote this sentence: "I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean." And I started crying so hard I had to stop writing."

Sure, it's dramatic, and I'll be dammed, it moved me to action (well, to be honest, it moved me to self pity first, and then it moved me to action. I want someone to pull ME out of the ocean! I want Julie Powell AND Julia Child and, screw it, it's my water rescue, after all, Simone Beck, Giada De Laurentiis, Paul Prudhomme, Lynne Rossetto Kasper AND Erik Bana (for sex appeal and the sheer physical strength to ACTUALLY pull me out of said ocean) to show up in a motorized raft, pluck ME out of the deluge, soaked and exhausted, sobbing and wilted. Then they'll feed me warm chicken broth, Julie will make me a giant gimlet, Lynne will open-hand slap me across the face, hard, and they'll tell me to relax, take heart, shut my yap and dig in.

As I am an independent woman, I think in reality, just like Julie, I'll be pulling myself out of said deluge, but in my heart, I'll be scooped up by everyone alive and dead who dreamed that they could be better, be more and believed without arrogance that they possibly were meant for something more special in the way of a career than a cube with a view.

So, tonight will be my FIRST, OFFICIAL meal from TST and my FIRST OFFICIAL post will be composed before, during and after. I will complete each recipe in one of the PREMIER Italian cookbooks of all time, The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. I will not attempt to do this in one year, rather, I will commit to completing it by the time P.J. and I honeymoon in Italy in October 2010. LRK is one of if not THE authority on Italian cooking and TST is the only winner of both the Julie Child Best Cookbook of the Year award AND the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award. The book itself has another "seal" on it that indicates the IACP Cookbook Awards "Book of the Year." Beyond this, I do not know much about Ms. Rossetto Kasper, but I'm going to learn along the way. I know that I had an opportunity to meet her as she appeared at the little South Minneapolis Deli that I had the pleasure of working at for two years, Broders' Cucina Italiana. But even then, with little to no knowledge of how important she was, I felt intimidated and understood that my job was more to serve the customers flocking in to see her than it was to sit in her lap and ask her to tell me that I'm a good girl. Like the culinary Santa Claus or some crap.

Anyways, I begin this journey on the very same day as Julie Powell, August 13, 2009, just seven years later. Come along for the ride. Your support, criticism, advice and humor are all so very welcome. Just keep in mind that if you're hard on me, you may receive a response that will make you want to walk into traffic. Let's put our helmets on and be entertained!

I am not sure that Ms. Rossetto Kasper has a catch phrase on her MPR show that shares its name with TST, but for all intents and purposes, let me proudly, hopefully and fearlessly say MY catch phrase, for now and always....

Andiamo a la cuicina! (We go to the kitchen!)

Stay tuned for tonight's meal!