I spent a large amount of my childhood playing cards with my Grandma: on weekends, at Christmas, on summer afternoons when we’d left from the beach as we waited for the steaks and baked potatoes to finish cooking. Eventually, my siblings joined in, but I remember a time when I was just old enough to stay away from home for a night, and the most exciting thing in the world was to spend the night at Marnie and Pop Pop’s house in Westhampton, watching as my grandma expertly bridged the well-worn deck of cards that slipped and slid next to one another, asking me which game I wanted to play, of which she knew the rules to hundreds.
I didn’t tell anyone, mostly because I didn’t realize how strange it was, but I was so looking forward to the day in school where the teacher would tell us to put away our pencils and notebooks and whip out a deck of cards to teach us to bridge. I assumed it would happen on or around the same day that they taught us how exactly to pay credit card bills, as well as the day that we learned “the law,” which, to my six-year-old mind, was no doubt written up and bound in some sort of book or list, like the 10 Commandments.
I won’t lie and say I’ve completely grown out of this childish desire to have these sorts of things enumerated and laid out for me, as easily as my multiplication tables. I’ve no idea why schools don’t round up high schoolers to walk them through tax paying, check writing, passport applications and which are the books you absolutely must read before you turn 16 (The Fountainhead, The Catcher in the Rye, Farenheit 451, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone).
It doesn’t matter now. I’ve figured most of it out on my own, and at any rate, now I’m learning everything.
For those who called “hyperbole,” I’ll allow it, but I’m so wrapped up in the world I’ve somehow found myself in that sometimes I just sit alone for awhile and imagine what would have happened had everything gone according to plan, had I found myself back in New York at some job somewhere this September, instead of in a Sorbonne classroom.
I love smart people. I salivate as they talk, listening as they allow their minds to race out loud, outlining everything they know about a topic they love, an urge I can identify with, though their expertise is well beyond my reach. In particular, I love my 20th Century Novel professor, a man in giant rounded glasses with an expanding bald spot and unnaturally perfectly straight teeth. His notes are yellow with age, but he seems to hardly use them; he has a filing cabinet of quotes stored away in his brain, and he whips one out at the perfect moment and then leaves it to stew for just enough time before he jumps to the next point.
The APF and I are obsessed with him. We sit at the desk we share and stare, highlighting his handouts with vigor and trying to come up with something to say to him as he leaves class every evening. Last week, we asked for his favorite book, to which he replied, “This week? Céline. Last week? Mauriac. Who knows, for next week?”
The APF and I were giddy after this class, skipping down the boulevard that leads from the Pantheon, past the homeless man I’ve seen every day, reading in front of the Collège de Paris. I’ve half a mind to give him books, all the ones I’ve learned about so far this year. I feel like I’m filling up with knowledge, like when I was in middle school and imagined each new fact registering itself in my brain like on a 3.5 inch floppy disk.
I didn’t learn to cook from my mother, though whether that’s because I didn’t want to learn or she didn’t want to teach remains a puzzle. At any rate, when I arrived in Toronto at 18, I had very few recipes under my belt that she’d listed on a car ride to the mall when I begged: lasagna, tiramisu and chicken parmesan. I’ve reinvented this dish over the past few years; I don’t like frying, shallow, deep or otherwise–I don’t like to be burned by boiling oil. Instead, I sear chicken breasts and cover them with zesty sauce and mozzarella and finish baking them in the oven. Sometimes, you don’t need someone to teach you in order to learn.
Chicken Parmesan
2 tsp. olive oil
salt and pepper
2 chicken breast halves
1 cup tomato sauce (good storebought or your favorite recipe. Here’s mine.)
2 oz. mozzarella
parmesan cheese for serving
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Heat the olive oil over high heat in a frying pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and sear 2-3 minutes per side, until golden. Remove to a baking sheet (I cover mine with foil).
Cover the chicken with the tomato sauce and top with the mozzarella. Cover with foil and cook 10-15 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Remove the foil and turn up the oven to broil (or put the chicken under the broiler, if you have one) and broil until the cheese is melted and just a bit golden. Serve with pasta.
I just love reading about how you are living your dreams. I didn’t learn to cook from my mother, either – although we both enjoy it. I learned to cook when I was on my own because I hated fast food and couldn’t afford to eat anything better unless I learned to cook it.
Oh galoshes… ::sighs dreamily::
I told my dad about Le Lecteur Sans-Abri. He agrees that we should give him books. Next time they have one of those massive book sales, I say we should wrassle us up some karma.