..but I'm not sure I know what it is. Is there a word for simultaneously feeling both admiration and revulsion for something like, say, a book?
The book tells the story of this woman, Julie, who decides to teach herself to cook by spending a year cooking every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This is the admiration part. I think that's just brilliant. It's the kind of quirky, insane quest that makes me fall madly in love with the person doing the questing and extremely jealous that I didn't think of doing it myself first.
Except.
Except.
Except that I kind of hated Julie. Every detail that she revealed about herself made me revile her more. Her constant bitching about "Pushing 30" (and, yes, she capitalizes it like that every time) and not especially liking her job. That she calls her blog readers "bleaders." The way she snipes at the husband who, having read the book, I can only describe as long-suffering and possibly also paying for some extraordinary cruelties he committed in a past life. The way she breaks down and starts screaming at people when things don't go perfectly. The fact that she can't seem to mention her apartment or kitchen without the qualifier "outer-borough" in front of it. The way she had to point out every time she mentioned an obscure cooking term that it reminded her of something sexual. (We get it, you still like sex even though you're Pushing 30. You're my hero.)
I tried to paraphrase this passage, but I think it's best reproduced in its entirety:
"...I knew there'd been a bombing of an American civilian compound in Riyadh. See, Eric has an aunt in Saudi Arabia; he couldn't quite remember what city, though... Eric had been glued to the television all evening. but the news was annoyingly saying nothing at all about the bombing. He'd been making calls all evening—to his mom, his brother, his cousins—but disturbingly, no one was picking up. I knew all this, and yet I screamed and sobbed and threw utensils as if Sauce Tartare was the only thing that mattered, as if Sauce Tartare was more important than family, than death, than war."
Screaming and sobbing and throwing utensils over a sauce that's not coming together while her husband waits to see if his aunt has been killed? Who is this person and why hasn't anyone just hauled off and cracked her across the jaw yet? Has it never penetrated her self-centered bubble that there are literally millions of women who are almost or—horrors!—over thirty and have less-than-fulfilling work situations and still manage to get through the day without being complete assholes, even without their high school sweetheart around to do the dishes?
This was one of those books where I found myself talking back to the writer and what I was saying most of the time was oh, boo fucking hoo. While rolling my eyes. And wondering why I didn't just stop reading the book if I pissed me off so much.
I stuck with it for the food writing, which was okay but sort of beside the point what with all the everything else going on. I did sympathize with her trauma over killing lobsters. I've done it and when you get to that point, it's really, really hard to put a living creature into a pot of boiling water, even if you had thought about it a lot ahead of time and steeled yourself. (She made her husband do it.) And I had a good schadenfreude moment toward the end when someone interviews Julia Child and she says something not especially flattering about Julie, who screamed and sobbed about it, of course. Also, I've started and discarded a bunch of books recently—Self-Made Man (annoyed by author's "hey I'm amazed to find that these blue-collar guys aren't total dicks" shtick), The Omnivore's Dilemma (one-week limit at library, spent too much time bogged down in section about laws governing subsidies paid to corn farmers and ran out of time), Assassination Vacation (am heartbroken to discover that even when Sarah Vowell—who I LOVE—is writing about it, I don't really care about the nitty-gritty of presidential assassinations), etc.—and I wanted to actually finish a book I started.
Speaking of food writing, an old friend was telling me yesterday about all of the incredible food he ate on his recent honeymoon. He said it almost made him want to learn to hunt so he could catch his own ducks and rabbits and make his own wild game pates and whatever else from scratch. I told him that he should do it and start a blog about it, for the love of our extremely long friendship and anything else he happens to hold dear, because a blog about a smarty-pants English teacher learning to hunt, butcher and cook wild game is something I would really love to read. It'd be like a cross between a less-political Michael Pollan with a Julie Powell I don't want to strangle.
After I finished the book this afternoon, I made myself a batch of crepes to celebrate not being a hysterical freak who says mean things to people who care about me when I screw stuff up. Yay! Crepe batter is pretty simple. Whisk together 1 c. flour, a pinch of salt and 2 1/14 c. milk. Beat in 2 eggs, followed by 2 T melted-but-not-super-hot butter. Use a 1/4 c. measuring cup to mete out the batter for each crepe.
I like this picture because you can see the measuring cup sinking into the batter like a mastodon into a tar pit. Obviously, I don't worry too much about getting rid of all of the tiny flour lumps and you don't notice them in the finished dish. Ditto on whether the crepe is actually, technically round. (and the obsessive hausfrau in me would like to point out the the stove isn't actually filthy, just old and needing to be painted. thank you.)
I always forget to count how many I end up with, but it's enough for two people to eat for brunch with no room for anything else. If you make them for yourself, they'll keep in the fridge for a couple of days. Now, I have very strong feelings about what to fill crepes with. Savory fillings seen weird to me somehow. I'm sure I could be won over if someone made them for me, but I wouldn't do it myself. I don't like crepes with chocolate fillings. When I've been lucky enough to be eating crepes on the street in Paris, I've enjoyed both chestnut and Grand Marnier fillings, but I don't do those at home. There are people who feel very strongly that the best way to eat crepes is with fresh lemon juice and a little sugar. They are wise, these people, because that is extremely delicious, but it's still not quite right. This is the best way to eat crepes.
A very thin smear of sour cream on one side and a very thin smear of jam on the other. There should be little enough filling that you can eat with your hands without any oozing out, if you like. Roll the crepe parallel to the filling so you'll get cream and jam in each bite. If I'm making these for other people, I'll make them all ahead of time. If it's just me, I fill them as I go. If I'm making them for people I want to pamper, impress and/or fatten up for some reason, I'll put all of the filled crepes in a baking dish, pour heavy cream over, sprinkle with cinnamon and warm through in the oven.
