Delancey_cover In 2004, Susan and I had just left Harwinton — a small town of 3,500 in rural northern Connecticut — after living there for three years. We first met in the chilly autumn months of 1999, began seeing each other in January of 2000, and moved in together almost a year later, after twelve months of long weekends and weepy Monday morning goodbyes. This was it for me; I knew it was, pretty quickly. And leaving Manhattan — where I was born and raised and where I returned after college — for love was something that didn’t need a whole lot of mulling-over. Some of my friends thought I was out of my mind; my mother didn’t take it well. But love is love, and when I closed the door to my East 57th Street apartment behind me, I could only look, and move, forward. It’s the right thing, my father said to me. It’s love, and love is love. 

Two years after I left New York, on a murky Sunday wet with humidity, my father and his longtime companion were in a car accident that was ultimately fatal for him. I was grief-stricken — am grief-stricken, even now; grief has no time limits or cut-offs, despite the earnest nudgings of well-meaning family members to move forward, to get on with things — and I turned to writing as a way to breathe again. It was all I could do; that, and build my new life together in another state, with my love. Eventually, after three years in a charming small town that had just gotten its first stoplight in 1996, we decided to move closer to New York; Susan had begun working at Random House and couldn’t make the commute from so far away. I was writing for anyone who would let me: newspapers, magazines, websites. I worked as a ghostwriter, a travel writer, a political writer, a restaurant reviewer, a cookbook writer.

You should try food blogging, one of my friends said. There’s this woman out in Seattle who just started doing it.

I looked at her blog; I was instantly captivated by her sense of fun, her bravery, her way of writing about food that was utterly immediate and elemental. I loved her honesty and kindness. She too, I learned, had recently lost her father, and had turned to blogging as a way through her grief. And, in the scores of readers like me who waited for her next post to go up so that I/we would be compelled to cook something that I/we ordinarily wouldn’t (a flan; an egg and tomato gratin; a walnut cake) was a guy — a curly-haired musician who lived on the other side of the country. They found each other on line, as it were, in the way that Susan and I had, years earlier. Mostly. MW by Kyle Johnson Molly Wizenberg and I met, eventually, when we were both speakers at the Professional Food Writer’s Symposium at the Greenbrier. At this point, I was already a dedicated reader of Orangette, and when we said hello I turned into a yammering, stammering, blithering idiot; she was gracious and kind, and a little shy, and she smiled a lot. I thought about her name, Wizenberg—probably, I guessed, from the German, Weisen-berg — and that it translates to mountains of wise men. I read her first book, A Homemade Life. And then I read it again and again, over and over, crying like a damned fool every time. And then laughing, and smiling. And cooking. This, I realized, was life: crying and laughing and smiling. And cooking.

When my late mother-in-law and I were at one of the lowest points in our relationship I baked her Molly’s Hearts and Minds Cake. There was nothing else to do; it saved us, and we moved forward.

Molly’s story is now well-known; she blogged brilliantly, long before blogging was a household word. She met a lovely, kind man, and he left the east coast for Seattle, and they married. But I don’t think anyone would have predicted that, all these years later, she and Brandon would have opened up a pizza restaurant that they were going to call Delancey. I remember her telling me about it in its earliest days.

A pizza restaurant, I thought. How nice. 

I’m from New York — Manhattan by way of Forest Hills, where I grew up with the best pizza in the city literally across the street from my apartment — and so when Molly told me about this place that she and Brandon were opening, I smiled and quietly wondered what the hell they were getting themselves into.

Opening up a restaurant, like love, is a romantic notion, until you do it; instead of cranky exes hovering in the wings waiting to pounce, you have to deal with permits and ovens and tiling and payroll systems and dishwashers and sous chefs and front of house and food deliveries and the one enigmatic character who invariably shows up in the kitchen and turns it, literally, upside down. The act of opening up a restaurant is like giving birth to a baby with an anger management problem; you never know when it’s going to rage, or coo, or rip off its diaper and hurl it at an unsuspecting passer-by. With luck, the end product is so gorgeous, so delicious — so stunning — that the crazy process grows misty and faint, and all you can do is look back at it and know that every drop of sweat and blood that went into it made it what it is.

One weekend shortly after Delancey opened, I flew out to Seattle and Molly fed me Brandon’s pizza and I stopped rolling my eyes. I stopped talking. Here was this man — not a trained chef — who, together, with his wife and against all possible odds, created the best pizza I had ever tasted; his process was honest and pure, his ingredients were honest and pure, and he sourced them as though they were worth their weight in gold.

To this day, it is the finest pizza I have ever tasted anywhere — including New York — produced with focus and attention and a level of integrity that, in a world crawling with poseurs, is hard to find. Sitting at the front counter at Delancey next to Molly, with Brandon in the kitchen sliding gorgeous pies into a blazingly-hot oven, I looked around on my first visit and realized that this was it; this was Molly and Brandon in their life together, moving forward, stepping into their next phase as a couple and a part of their community, in love with the food and the process and everything they had built together. Delancey was their pre-June baby — with all its ups and downs and twists and turns.

It was the right thing, like my father had once told me; love is love.

I was deeply honored to read Delancey-the-book in its earliest inception; Molly’s newest memoir, and the story of the birth of the restaurant during the freshest days of her life together with Brandon is not only the tale of one couple building a dream. It’s the story of building a dream when you don’t even know that that dream is, in fact, your dream; it’s about risk-taking and trust and what it means to put one foot in front of the other and walk through the next stage of your life with the person you adore.

Back in 2004, swimming through a sea of grief, looking for a toehold and something to hang on to that was fast and true in the face of the unknown, I found Molly’s work; her writing, her story, and her food steadied me then, and I still turn to it now when I’m out there, flailing around, unsure of what’s real and what isn’t. Delancey is the delicious tale of Molly’s next chapter; my copy, dog-eared and already falling apart, is a joy to read and re-read.

Thanks Molly, for sharing your world with us. x

Gluten Free{dom}

May 27, 2014 · 38 comments

Bread Crust A few months ago, I published a piece in the New York Times about where I stand on the gluten free issue, such as it is; I call it an issue because it has become, startlingly, just that—an issue. Like the issue of body art or nose piercing. Like it’s just an annoying way of eating that some self-important people claim to be faced with on a day-to-day basis, which sets them apart from the rest of the universe. Like they’re oh so special, or perhaps weren’t special enough in their mother’s eyes and the result is that now the rest of us have to try not to stare at their big, black ear lobe plugs while we’re engaged in polite conversation over hors d’oeuvres and dry martinis in the south parlor.

As my late great dispassionate Aunt Gertrude once said to me, Poor them.

The issue as written about by me and the other writers elicited responses all over the spectrum; there were naysayers and yaysayers, and some folks who talked about the very real problems surrounding bandwagons and trend, and the inevitable compassionless boors who honestly seem to believe that people who suffer from celiac disease and varying levels of intolerance are just faking it, as if a lifetime of bloating, diarrhea, fever, chills, vomiting, intestinal pain, and a litany of other less-than-delightful afflictions is something one might want to drum up at will, assuming one could. You know, just like that nagging little head shake that so many people with Parkinson’s use to their advantage.

This particular gluten free issue is one that is important to me on a personal level: I come from a very long line of family members who have suffered through the generations from what one of my cousins euphemistically calls tummy troubles which run the gamut from ordinary, self-diagnosed lactose intolerance (which precludes drinking milk but, in some cases, not eating cheese), to deadly fish/beef/nut allergies, to my dear late dad’s lifetime of discomfort: as a nineteen-year-old night fighter pilot in the wartime Pacific, he once had no choice but to put his plane down in a leper colony on the-then nearly uninhabitable island of Molokai less than an hour after eating a Parker House roll at his officer’s club. His apparent delusion and obvious desire to be different eventually resulted in not one, but two colostomies, five years apart. (If only he had quit his bellyachin’ and just ate what everyone else did, he clearly would have been fine.)

In the last year, I made the discovery that, generally speaking, I feel better if I eat either no gluten at all, or very infrequently and judiciously (sliced sandwich bread no; high quality, 3-ingredient bread, yes, but not every day and sometimes not even every week).  I apparently have no problem with long-fermented doughs assuming I haven’t been gorging on their dreck-laden counterparts in the days prior. It’s not particularly a big deal; I don’t go near pizza if I’m not feeling well, nor do I expect my local pizzeria to accommodate me and then complain if they won’t, because pizzerias are to gluten what coals are to Newcastle. I mean, would someone with a fish allergy go to Arthur Treacher’s, and then complain about the fact that there was nothing for him to eat? There’s plenty for me to eat on the days when I’m avoiding gluten, just as there is on days when I’m not: what I choose to eat and when and where and how isn’t anyone’s problem but mine, and frankly, it shouldn’t be. One thing is for sure, though, either way: I will never starve. Because, for me, gluten free eating is not about deprivation; it’s about making the absolute most of the bounty — the vegetables, fruit, fish, meat, poultry, non-glutenous grains — that I know I’m lucky enough to have access to. (Which begs the question: what about those who aren’t as lucky?) Thanks to my former author and now-friend, Erin Scott of Yummy Supper, for teaching me this lesson.

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I’ve just come from two weeks in Europe — a week each in Paris and London — and after shopping for several days at a great Monoprix in the 5th, and spending my time in London walking from one end of the city to the other, I came across only one overtly gluten-free business (although I know there are more): Romeo’s Bakery in Islington. Beyond that, people who are gluten sensitive seem to be dealing with it fine across the pond (assuming they are doing their own cooking and not trying to order a gluten free mille feuille at Taillevent) — they don’t eat bread or pasta or glutinous grains, and are surrounded by some of the most stunning vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, fish, cheese, and charcuterie I’ve seen, anywhere. Of all the meals I had out when I was away, the majority of them were naturally gluten free (the steak at Hawksmoor; the Branzino carpaccio at River Cafe; the saucisse d’Auvergne at Le Timbre); I didn’t ask for a gluten free menu nor did I mention that I wanted to eat gluten free. I just ordered appropriately. Then again, I’m also not a Celiac.

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All of this said, there is a significant problem here at home — one that no one seems to be talking about — surrounding gluten free foods and the people that love them (G.F.F.A.T.P.T.L.T.), and it is actually not one of trendiness, or availability, or even the supposedly implied imperiousness of gluten free-ers. Instead, it’s the fact that while the naysayers and yaysayers have been battling it out loudly in public — in newspapers, on blogs, in magazines — it’s the processed food manufacturing Collossus who is having the last laugh, as it always seems to: in response to the needs of a growing gluten free population, virtually every supermarket in America has seen mind-boggling, exponential growth in their packaged gluten free food aisles: suddenly, as if out of nowhere, gluten free cookies, cakes, crackers, mixes abound. This is not just anecdotal: in an article in Time.com, according to the market research company, Packaged Facts, the gluten free market in the United States last year was $4.2 billion, and is predicted to grow to $6.6 billion by 2017. Which is a lot of dough.

To be fair, not all packaged gluten free foods are the same; some are produced under very strict, high quality control — Bob’s Red Mill, Canyon Bakehouse, and Jovial being three of the many manufacturers whose products are stellar — and some are not. And the ones that are not do for gluten free eaters what Chiffon Margarine did for cardiac patients (remember Chiffon Margarine — it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature and all that — which was touted as a heart-healthy buttery spread but was actually a by-product of hydrogenated cottonseed oil developed by Houston-based cotton trading magnates): you get a pricey, completely gluten free product that’s hyper-processed and laden with chemicals, industrial fillers, stabilizers and binding agents. Which, in my estimation, not only makes it precarious; it makes it no longer food.

It matters not a drop if you’re an ethical vegan, a medical vegetarian, or gluten free, or if you’re allergic to nuts, fish, onions, or beef. It doesn’t matter if you exist on a steady diet of burgers and fries, can’t eat eggs, or are a Jain. It doesn’t matter if gluten free people drive you insane or they don’t. If it’s not food — real food, devoid of fillers and chemicals, and mechanically manipulated to taste or act like something that it isn’t — don’t eat it. Make sure your children and your senior citizen parents and the less fortunate around you aren’t being fed it. Because it’s not real. And feeding people anything that’s not real strikes me — in all its Soylent Green splendor — as wildly deceptive on the one hand, and insanely dangerous on the other.

So regardless of whether you’re a yaysayer or a naysayer — if you live somewhere on the gluten free continuum, as I do, or you know someone who does (and you likely do) — the conversation should not be focused on who is really a Celiac, or who is really sensitive, or who is lying for some reason (why would someone lie about the way they need to eat?), and how completely annoyed you get listening to gluten free eaters tediously yammer on about their condition: it should be focused on issues of food quality — gluten free, or not. It should be focused on truth-telling (come on, General Mills: jacking up the price of Muir Glen tomatoes because they’re gluten free is a teeny bit cruel and disingenuous, don’t you think? ALL tomatoes are gluten free.), and refusing to give up control of the food that you ingest to industrial producers who really — really — have absolutely no interest in your health, be you gluten free or not.

The answer, instead, is to buy the freshest food you can, assuming you don’t live in a food desert (another disgrace). Eat seasonally. Shop at a farmer’s market or join a CSA. Plant a small vegetable garden. Roast a chicken. Make a pot of soup. Marry your local charcuterie to your local cheese. Make enough salad dressing for the week. Have your neighbors in. Be an active part of your food community, gluten free or not. Feed each other. Learn to cook instead of opening a can/package/box or calling in for takeout. Whether you’re gluten free or you aren’t, food is health and it’s life: Yours, mine, and ours.

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