Midnight Madness

As I mentioned in the beet entry earlier, I eat a lot of my meals at work. From family meal once to twice daily to the grazing and tasting I do while cooking, I probably consume more at work than most individuals do in a day. So why is it that when I walk out the back door into the night at the end of a shift, I am ravenous for food?

We talk about our bodies when changing into our chef whites, or at those other times when our bodies in their shape and size make themselves apparent, such as getting a hip snagged by the swinging lowboy door or bruising a bony shoulder when passing the shelves of hotel pans. Almost everyone has a story regarding their body and what happened to it when they became a cook. It usually refers to gaining or losing 20 or more pounds, blaming empty calorie beer or the hours, which apparently can argue for either scenario. Nobody ever says their body has stayed the same.

We make jokes about the burn slashes across our forearms or the thumbnail that will never quite grow back straight. (Don’t worry, we always find the tip of thumb or finger and start fresh with a clean cutting board). Singed eyebrows and lashes, hot duck fat burns less than a centimeter from the eye, the fiddler crab lack of symmetry in our forearms, the callus as thick as the wall between my tiny apartment and my neighbor’s (it’s thin, relatively speaking about walls, but thick for a piece of skin on my hand).

Most of my cooking friends are as thin as a stalk of celery. They also are never hungry, as though they absorb nutrients through osmosis by touching the food all day. But that is not the case with me, I am always hungry! I am not of celery or any other kind of stalk thinness, but I have also managed to avoid looking like a butternut squash or a pear. Perhaps a fingerling potato, minus the bumps. Mmmm, potatoes.

I don't cook well enough for myself when I am outside of work. I realize that if I ate the way I did before becoming a professional cook but continued the on-my-feet-12-hours-a-day-carrying-heavy-things-regimen that I am on now, I would look like an Olympian. This summer, I worked three days a week while in school and spent all of my free time cooking. Now I hardly cook at all on days that I work. I have managed to avoid fast food places, but I seriously eat at least two frozen pizzas a week. I cook them first, so at least there is that. Some nights I go to Cafe Presse, where they make a mean croque madame, but drink three glasses of wine while I am at it because the spicy nuts they serve make me thirsty. And then there is the Deluxe, open when all other kitchens are closed, where I get a burger with cheese and bacon and fries and I am not kidding a side of ranch to dip not only my fries in, but also the corners of my burger! (One time at Deluxe I ordered deep fried balls of macaroni and cheese, and I liked it) And then there is the canned tuna. Some nights I make tuna melts. And I eat a bag of salt and vinegar chips while I wait for them to heat up. Once in a great while I go to Barrio and someone ALWAYS orders churros and then I have to also. I literally smear the chocolate on my face. But the most pathetic, most sad, is when I simply take a leftover baguette home from work and sit on the couch and rip pieces off and eat it until I get the hiccups. (I think it is the setting that is the problem with that one, because if I were eating baguette while sitting in a cafe in Paris, it would have an entirely different ambiance).

Obviously I value food, specifically food grown near the earth I live on, breathing the same air and drinking the same water. But it is as though I have given all of the food love I have to give, leaving nothing left for me. Is this another cobbler story, or am I simply lacking balance? Friends and I have tried several attempts at late night healthy food. We’ve made shepherd’s pie and lasagne, freezing individual portions for reheating later. I have pre-made salad to dress when I arrive home. I have even packed up the leftovers from family meal at work to reheat when I arrive home. But all it takes is the power of suggestion. One cook mentions he’s craving a burger and beer or those spicy tater tots from the hill, and I am off the healthy food wagon. I convince myself that I deserve to eat whatever I want because I worked hard that day. I’ll start tomorrow.

No burgers, bacon, frozen pizzas, or ranch dressing were consumed in the writing of this entry.