Day 56, Be Brave Project; Ah, Autumnal Sundays & Curbside Treasures

When I first stopped drinking I joined a gym, less for the health aspect than for a very real need to reduce anxiety. I was at that gym everyday, plugged into my two (not nearly as effective but at least not liver-damaging) new distractions, the reclining exercise bicycle and silly magazines. Every day another 60-70-90 minutes on the bike, gulp down a guilty magazine or two, 100 arms 100 abs, stretch sauna shower and back out the door to figure out what the hell to do with myself.

Unsurprisingly, I began to lose weight.

I was gratified--because in addition to cycling and silly magazines, I was also rather compulsively eating sugar. Sugar in any form, though my two far-away favorites were either a) chocolate or b) home baked goods. I swung from respectable sugar fests of homemade apple cobbler with sour cream or banana bread toasted with pats of icy butter, to boxes of Chips Ahoy! cookies downed with skim milk straight from the container. . .

And still the weight came off, slo-owly. Around 2 pounds a month. I continued to find this to be quite exciting. For years I never ate sweets (got enough sugar through the booze, anyway), walked my ass off, then would eat a glamorous dinner consisting of 3 fish-sticks and some sliced carrots. And I really thought that was a healthy meal; protein and vegetable. Yet both my waist and face were swollen. Thanks, vodka.

Now, In my ugly and oddly counter-less little kitchen near Columbia University I started putting together feasts of Marcella Hazan's Spaghetti Bolognese, Joy of Cooking's Chili Con Carne, or Poulet a la Fermiere (a fabulous chicken/potato/vegetable/tarragon and cream dish). One Autumn Sunday I was coming home with food laden bags strung from my newly gym toned arms, and I saw something on the street--it was a heavy waist-high wooden wine rack. Hmm.

I dashed inside and dropped the plastic bags on the floor--was glared at by the cat--and ran back out to seize the wine rack. I dragged it up the stairs, down the hall, and into the kitchen. The cat glared again and slunked under the bed. The rack, though very heavy with a thick butcher's block top, was a bit rickety. I wedged it in tightly next to the oven until it didn't wobble at all. And--voila! I had a kitchen counter!

I washed the wine rack with bleach and hot water, dried it carefully, and put my cookbooks on the lower shelves. I'd of course heard of curbside treasures in NYC--but this was my first experience. The wood was pale and gleaming, the cookbooks all laid out on their backs on three levels.

For some reason I think I'll always remember that day--when some things sort of came together. My apartment was more complete, my cooking easier. I appreciated a free counter/bookshelf and also the irony that it was an empty wine-rack in a lush's house. I cooked a lot of excellent meals there--no more 3 fish sticks for me--I'd eat bowls of food, second and third portions after years of denial. . . then I'd take cookies to bed with me.

Last night the weather was again just like that Autumn day. Perfectly clear, crisp. I'd been to the gym, and to an AA meeting on CPW. At the gym I'd weighed myself and found that my weight was, in my opinion, too low. At 105 I look all right--but at 103 I frankly begin to lose my boobs altogether. It was time for another feast: I bought a chicken for roasting, and boiled some potatoes. Put a lemon in the cleaned chicken, dried the thing off, salted it and plopped it on top of the potatoes and carrots, and popped the whole thing in the oven. Waited an hour and made a salad. Ate 3 portions of roasted chicken dinner and followed that up with butter pecan ice cream.

It was excellent, a true 1958 dinner. But something was missing.

As I looked around my wonderful new apartment, at my lovely parquet floors and my northern facing views of Manhattan, I realized. . .I rather missed my old ugly and counterless kitchen, where I first figured out how to eat.