i'd rather be full

on feast, famine, fullness, and freedom

The first time that I visited my wife, before we’d officially started dating, my Uber pulled up to their house in Brooklyn. It was snowing. They weren’t home. “Just go in, I left the door open for you,” they said to me, a stranger at the time. “The one with the yellow bike out front. I’ll be right there, I just needed to grab a few things from the grocery.” I remember being slightly annoyed because (1) I didn’t know them well enough to “just go in,” and (2) we’d talked extensively about grocery shopping together on this trip, and they ‘d instead decided to shop without me. Much later on, Gem told me that they didn’t invite me to the store that day because they’d stolen all of the ingredients for the meal they’d prepared: oyster mushrooms, swiss chard, tomatoes, vegan cheese, paprika. They paid for the margarine though, they wanted me to know, cognizant of the optics of leaving the market empty-handed.

A month later, they visited me in New Orleans. I’d just moved back to the states after having lived abroad for 3 years. I was in a new apartment and I was broke.

The night before they arrived, I went to a 24-hour Rouses, at 2something a.m., when I knew there’d only be two (young, uninterested, exhausted) cashiers on duty, just before a shift swap. I wore my largest pair of sweats and a puffer coat, grateful for a chilly night and the layers it required. Under the violent buzz of the florescent lights, I filled my pockets: cinnamon, 3 loose eggs from the carton, one stick of butter from the box. A small carton of blueberries, a quart of half and half. (My roommate had sugar at home.) I bought the bread, smiled at the cashier, waddled out of the store like a fat duck.

Gem loved the french toast.

The timeline of my life is segmented by what I could, can, afford to put into my body at any given time. It’s the difference between frozen tilapia and bluefin tuna from the fishmonger; the difference between picking up the tab and praying that someone else does.

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feast

Hunger isn’t something that I experienced growing up. My dad is an excellent cook, and we ate often and well. He went above and beyond at mealtime, excited to put his latest stainless steel appliance — grill, smoker, crockpot, deep fryer — to use. Pot roast and gumbo and jambalaya kept my cheeks plump and my belly full.

Cooking wasn’t my mom’s strong suit.

Neither one of my grandmothers could really cook either, the common lore of grandma’s hands eluding them both. Still, my memories of their kitchens are fond: sitting on the kitchen counter while my Grandmother made tuna salad and red beans and spice cake from a box. My Nana’s pantry full of condiments collected from Wendy’s and Burger King, and the peppery eggs and turkey bacon she’d cook, religiously, when we spent the night.

More core memories:

• The crunchy, boxed tacos that my mom made on the rare occasions when she did cook.

• My parents leaving me and my siblings alone in the summer, with a deep freezer full of fish sticks and jalapeño poppers.

• Corn and potatoes and sausage at crawfish boils. (I don’t like crawfish.)

• Going to casino buffets in Biloxi, Mississippi, on the weekends.

• The first time we qualified for food stamps, post-Katrina, and I tried lobster for the first time.

• My brother making us chocolate malts with whipped cream when he felt nice.

• The single slice of Domino’s pizza that we were fed for every single lunch my 7th grade year, the first year after the hurricane.

• My best friend inviting me over to have dinner with her family after school. Eating from small, shared plates with chopsticks for the first time.

• The corn kernels I pushed around my plate when my parents told us they were separating.

• Eating cold cans of Spaghetti-Os in my dorm room my freshman year of college, when my meal plan expired.

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famine

At 19, I was a fry cook at Felipe’s Taqueria on North Peters in the French Quarter. From 3pm to 11pm, every Thursday through Monday, I’d stand over the fryer and dunk basket after basket of raw tortillas into scalding oil. Drain, dump, salt, bag, repeat, repeat, repeat. One of the perks of working the night shift (there weren’t many) was that we got to take home any food that was left over at the end of the night. My fridge was often chock full of small plastic containers filled with grilled chicken, carnitas, corn, refried beans, guacamole, and carne asada (if we were lucky). When I tired of Mexican(ish) food, these ingredients were repurposed into makeshift dishes to break up the monotony: steak-fried rice, chicken alfredo, avocado (guacamole) toast, pulled pork sandwiches. $8.50 an hour didn’t give allot me much of a grocery budget, so I was grateful for the protein.

And then I lost that job.
And my living space.
And my car.

And I experienced hunger — real, tummy-bubbling, teeth-grinding, food pantry-hunting hunger — for the first time.

Core memories:

• Stealing instant oatmeal packets from a friend’s pantry, more than once.

• Moving in with a known crack (yes, that crack) user to help with his “photography business” in exchange for a bedroom, and the occasional meal. Him frying chicken thighs in the greasy kitchen, giving me two. Me, devastated, grateful, embarrassed, nearly choking on the bone.

• My first 72-hours without a meal.

• Crying in the McDonald’s parking lot when my card was declined buying a kid’s meal. The kind stranger who came outside and gave me a $20 bill afterwards.

• Learning how to take the bus. Taking the bus to Winn-Dixie on Chef Menteur Hwy. Buying what was on sale: Rice-a-Roni, pork chops, American cheese, Teddy Grahams. Forgetting the groceries on the bus.

• Maxing out my first ever credit card to buy said groceries. (It went to collections.) (It’s still in collections.)

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fullness

Poverty turned me into a hoarder. After crawling out of the dark hole of homelessness, I was determined to never go hungry again. I didn’t eat well, but I did eat often. Eggos and hot dogs and the frozen chicken tenders that I had as a kid. Po-boys from the corner store. Fish wrapped in plastic. Krystal for lunch. Krystal for dinner. Oreos. Funyuns. Powdered donuts.

My waistband suffered for it. Along with my confidence, and my skin.

Moving overseas changed my relationship with food, by force. It was impossible to find the snacks that I’d come to rely upon for comfort (many of them were illegal in Portugal, where I lived at the time). So, I started shopping at the farmer’s market that set up shop in front of my building every weekend. I walked a half mile to the nearest bakery when I wanted bread. I learned the difference between butter and margarine. I ate pastel de nata, and cheese, and jamón ibérico. With a couple of years between me and penury, I began to relax. I remembered what it was like to enjoy eating.

Mexico brought my appreciation for food to the next level. It’s where I learned to eat seasonally, and that less is more when it comes to all ingredients (except chile). Meals became fun — to cook, to eat — and something “new” awaited discovery during each trip to the mercado. Chayote, tlayudas, pozole, chapulines, huitlacoche, and on and on. I purchased my first set of real pots in San Cris. I invested in a blender, a waffle maker, a food processor, a juicer — a junkie for appliances; my father’s child.

Core memories:

• My first pastel de nata.

• Learning that eggs are not refrigerated in Europe. (I didn’t eat eggs for months, because I couldn’t find them in the refrigerated section. I just…assumed that only restaurants had access to them?)

• The baker that I frequented in Lisbon, saving me a loaf of bread the first time I deviated from my usual schedule.

• Landing in Oaxaca, putting my luggage down, and immediately going to the nearest taco stand.

• Trying mole for the first time.

• Lots of food poisoning.

• Salmonella.

• Trying Indian food for the first time (also in Oaxaca).

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freedom

Something about winter makes me crave fruit. A welcome zing that seems to promise that the sun will shine again.

So, I go to the store and buy mandarins. Or grapefruit. I try this new thing called a limequat, because it looks interesting. I ask the butcher for his freshest cut, and build a meal around it. I let things simmer and soak and sear. I read Bon Appétit and Provecho and Midnite Snack. I put food in the community pantry. I host dinner parties.

Food, once a source of stress and anxiety, has become a welcome passion. Grocery stores, once an ugly reminder of all the things that I couldn’t have, have become a refuge. My waistband, once a source of insecurity, has become a reminder of how fortunate I am to have a little jiggle to my belly.

Core memories:

• My first tasting menu. (Pujol. Don’t recommend.)

• Eating brik in Marseille.

• Starting a supper club.

• Buying grilled elote at the mercado. Eating it as we shop.

• Having a bread lady, and a kombucha lady, and a tortilla lady, and a chocolate lady.

• Learning that Italians regularly eat 4-course meals. Becoming a person who regularly eats 4-course meals.

• Taking a pasta-making class in Florence. Being really bad at it.

• Buying tamales from our neighbor on Saturday nights.

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Food has always been about more than sustenance for me. It’s deeply linked to my outlook on life (Nihilistic? Pop-Tart. Hopeful? Smoked trout. Overwhelmed? We’re fasting.) and my state of mind. Our relationship is ever-changing, constantly in flux, up and down, but always aiming to feel good and taste better.