This week we conjure memories of dismal dishes in shades of beige, black, and gray. We also welcome Guest Gulletier, Emma Jane Gonzalez to the table.
A Hideous Coleslaw
I used to be a chef.
We’re all bored of discussing what happened “during Covid times,” but the thing is, when we entered lockdown, I was a chef. And now I’m not. And I’m still getting used to it.
Before that whole mess, I loved cooking. Feeding people carefully constructed meals with drizzles of goo and sprinkles of crunchies and dustings of tiny delicate something or other made me feel so good, so connected. Think about it this way: when you cook for someone, you take objects that come from the earth, then you use your hands to transform them, giving them depth and shape. You lovingly serve that to another person. They find pleasure in it. That thing then enters their body!?! It sustains them. It works its way through them and then it exits?!? What could be more intimate? And on top of that, I was in a kitchen full of buddies, talking shit as we chopped and scooped and wiped and tasted and sweated together. I’m fully romanticizing it, but it was great.
Then everything went weird, and my life got really quiet. And I lost my appetite.
During lockdown, those of us with privilege found hobbies. A lot of folks took to the culinary arts. They were posting perfect buttery lamination, fizzing kombuchas, dough babies softly rising in newly purchased proofing baskets. But that part of my brain turned off. Solitude gave cooking and eating a hollow feeling. I found other crafts. I embroidered items that didn’t ask for embroidery.
I was learning something that had gone strangely unnoticed before. I don’t like cooking for myself. Not because I am selfless. Probably because I need validation– like my taste buds require an audience. But it’s also about what food is to me. It’s a vehicle for love, care, and connection. For just a single plate, it’s not fun. How did I not know this?!
So I was heating up peas, mostly.
I ate frozen peas at nearly every meal. Toast with peas. Pasta with peas. Rice with peas. That was pretty much the list. Then when the weather warmed, I’d visit the farmer’s market, a place I used to find inspiring. I’d buy beautiful veggies and eggs, hoping to relight my flame. But it didn’t happen. My body benefited from the nutrients, but my spirit felt nothing. One week, I forced myself to start a jar of sauerkraut. The cabbage was about to wilt, I had to. Once it had a gentle funk on it, I opened the jar and scooped a pile into a bowl (instead of directly into my mouth, progress!). I thought, I made a thing, I need to honor the thing by treating it well.
‘Twill be coleslaw.
When I tell you this coleslaw was ugly, I mean it with my whole heart. Instead of perky crispy cabbage, my sauerkraut was limp and pallid, like it needs sunshine or a multivitamin. I made the twisted choice to throw black garlic into my aioli along with the fresh garlic, turning it the color of cement. Once those two ingredients were combined, I sprinkled a few sunflower seeds and raisins on top (I’m the kind of pervert who likes raisins with my mayo), and that was that. It was glossy and gray and beige and flaccid. No asymmetrical plating or microgreen garnish could save it; this was a homely fucking dish. It was also rich and tangy and salty and sweet and zippy and unctuous and so delicious that for a moment I remembered who I was. Alone in a room, the food tasted good.
I’m still negotiating my relationship with food, with feeding, with joy. I do other things for work now, perhaps it’s a healthier dynamic, a more balanced sense of identity. The charged hunger that used to exist within me hasn’t returned with its original force, but there’s a craving. Longing is better than numbness, I think. And I have yet to recreate that perfect, hideous coleslaw. Someday I’ll make it for someone else, and all my complicated feelings will travel through their body and into the sewer system.
And that’s the nature of things, I guess.
The Verdict: Fermented with feeling.
A Very Beige Breakfast
By Kitty
This past Sunday I had the day to myself. The only item on my agenda was making turkey chili (a specialty) to bring over to my dad's house. Since I’d already planned to be in the kitchen and my refrigerator was stocked, I thought, why not whip up a whole shebang breakfast? Eggs, toast, sausage, and hash browns. The catch was that all of the ingredients on hand were "healthier" versions of what you'd get at your favorite diner - whole wheat bread, chicken sausage, and hash browns that were actually cauliflower in disguise.
I let a little Graza sizzle in my skillet before throwing on the frozen items. When things started to sear, I popped my bread in the toaster and cracked an egg over the pan. The yolk bubbled and spit like hot lava. Game over. I knew turning down the heat on the burner would be futile. The rate at which my egg was frying far surpassed its counterparts; its burnt, crackling edges almost mocked the barely-there, golden brown achieved by the other ingredients in the pan. I can look past sad, gray sausage, but the lumpy, beige cauliflower discs were unforgivable.
I couldn’t believe my whole shebang was about to be a bust. Even with proper plating, this meal was giving dry and dusty. I dumped a pool of Whole Foods Market Spicy Ranch dressing on the side of the dish, but not even that pop of peach could save it. It looked horrid and honestly tasted worse. My meal had inadvertently become a mood board for a SKIMS campaign, and I was the creative director. What a Sunday.
The Verdict: “Eat the rainbow” is a rule of thumb for a reason.
Name Drops: Graza, Whole Foods Market Spicy Ranch
Spoonful of Swill
By Greg
Last week, I went on a work trip to Milford, Pennsylvania. It's a small town with limited grab-and-go lunch options. Spoonful Soup & Eats is the one solid standby serving up "healthy bowls," soup and sandwiches. Whenever I visit, I plead my case for placing an order there before anyone has time to suggest a wet mess from Taco Bell. My go-to bowl is called "Chicken Scratch'', which is their spin on cowboy caviar over quinoa (hold, please)! I'm usually very satisfied, but this lunch should have never left the stable.
To say it was unappealing was an understatement. When I pried off the plastic lid of the bowl, I was suddenly witness to a compostable crime scene: shreds of sweet potato, raw bits of CORN COB (!?), and three chunks of rock-hard chicken lurking beneath a watery dump of black beans—a lunch destined for the farm trough.
Someone definitely was not having their best day, and honestly, in these times, do best days still exist? I imagined someone chopping up all of the bowl’s ingredients, AirPods in, and enraptured by a new episode of their favorite podcast. The host says something that really gets them. They laugh and shake their head. Fully captivated and distracted, they push all of the scraps into the bowl instead of the goods, pack it up, and smash the kitchen bell.
Most of what I put in my mouth ended up back in the bowl, and it didn't look out of place. I suppose every solid standby has an off day, and today was definitely that day. Next trip to Milford, I'll be rolling up to the Taco Bell drive-through, safely ordering a quesadilla combo.
The Verdict: All scratch, no chicken.
Name Drops: Spoonful Soup & Eats
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator, Racheal Bruce2! See her work here.
If you’d like to be a Guest Gulletier or illustrator, drop us a note at putitinthegullet@gmail.com
Emma Jane Gonzalez is a vegetable enthusiast who books and manages events for a rooftop farm in Brooklyn. She would describe her personal style as Fran Fine meets Your Annoying Little Brother. She has one dog and a growing collection of whistles.
Racheal Bruce is an illustrator and educator from St. Louis. Her work imbues the feeling that a fantastical unreality could exist in our physical world, with all of the whimsy and eeriness that comes with it. She's curious how an audience interacts with their own feelings of superstition.