Stories from a Cookbook

I grabbed an old cookbook from a shelf the other day, and an index card slipped out. In the sturdy hand that once belonged to me, a recipe for “chicken-ham roll-ups” was carefully written in faded marker pen. Ah, the memories it evoked! It was circa 1974, and I clearly recalled being in the kitchen of a Victorian house in Madison, Wisconsin, with my friend Cyd, lining up ingredients on the countertop as we began preparing dinner for our hoped-for boyfriends, Steve and Doug.

Not only that, Cyd and I had decided to pretend it was the early 1950s, and we wore lipstick and flower-print bib aprons over sweaters and skirts that clung to our curves. We parted our hair tightly down the middle and clipped it into vaguely pompadour-ish rounds. We were silly and giggly and ridiculously excited.

The recipe must have been copied from a magazine clipping or the back of a soup can label. It certainly wasn’t Julia Child, but it was our idea of sophistication because it involved a quarter cup of “Chablis or other dry white wine.” I laugh when I read it now — basically it involved rolling slices of boiled ham around skinned, boneless chicken breasts secured with toothpicks and browned in a skillet and stirring in a can of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, plus that dry white wine.

We thought the guys would be impressed by our culinary skills, and we hoped they would appreciate our humor too, but the fact that we were attired for the 1950s did not even register with them. Their expressions were of mild bewilderment, thinking, if anything, that we were sort of oddly dressed up for the occasion. It was, to be fair, an era for jeans, embroidered gauze hippie tops, and free flowing hair. They dutifully ate the chicken-ham roll-ups without much comment, and they didn’t linger long. Afterwards, Cyd and I wondered what we had done wrong, which is something we wondered about often regarding men.

The problem with guys, it seemed to us, was that you had to appear uninterested. A little indifference was very sexy to them, but it was hard to feign indifference when your heart was pounding. They had a radar for neediness and any trace of it instantly rerouted them in the opposite direction. On the other hand, your role also involved helping them to uphold whatever illusions they had about themselves, which could involve some delicate diplomacy. When it came to ego, they were more sensitive and insecure than you might initially think, probably not as sensitive and insecure as we were, but we intuitively understood that we must subtly prop them up. Above all, we recognized that the rule was to steer clear of any situation that might cause them embarrassment.

Maybe there’s a more balanced dynamic between the sexes nowadays, but this is what it felt like to us back then.

Steve and Doug ate the chicken-ham roll-ups and called it an early night. I don’t think Doug ever returned Cyd’s interest in him, but Steve did ask me out. He showed up in a red Comet and wearing tight leather pants, and I told myself it was cool in a rock-star way, and we drove to a place called Picnic Point that was supposed to be romantic, and it was all just fine with me because he raced sailboats and I couldn’t even swim, and he was a draftsman in an architectural firm while I was an unemployed office temp and college drop-out, and I seemed destined for a supportive role even in the flickering movie of my own life, which was starting to get dark. I might as well help reinforce the egos of men who could at least distract me from the stuff I didn’t want to deal with. 

Now, back on the cookbook shelf in the fortunate kitchen of my present life, I noticed volumes of James Beard and remembered the years with the alcoholic professor who fancied himself a chef and gourmand, and there on a sheet of loose-leaf paper was Lainie Magnotto’s Cheesecake, Chicago, 1973, with its secret of sour cream in the topping; and Tofu Rice Pudding from Monte’s mother in 1985 (for upset tummies, she had said); and two kinds of dip from Rich and Doris Cornell, who liked tennis and big band music and hosting gatherings at their Newport Beach home; and Millie’s famous cookie bars (written in pink marker pen and adorned with hearts); and basic pie dough from Teresa, which I never actually achieved; and various versions of lentil soup.

And I know everything is available on the Internet now, and I can let go of all these paper stashes, but wouldn’t I miss the grease stains and ancient residues of dough? And how many recollections would I be discarding?