Zin - The Starving Artist cookbook : illustrated recipes for first-time cooks

Copyright 2016 Sara Zin

All rights reserved

Book design by Endpaper Studio

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, The Countryman Press, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton
Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.comor 800-233-4830

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Zin, Sara, author.
Title: The Starving Artist cookbook : illustrated recipes for first-time cooks / Sara Zin.
Description: Woodstock, VT : Countryman Press, a division of W. W. Norton & Company,
[2016] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015041665 | ISBN 9781581573534 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Cooking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.
Classification: LCC TX714 .Z56 2016 | DDC 641.5dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041665

The Countryman Press
www.countrymanpress.com

A division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
www.wwnorton.com

978-1-58157-353-4

978-1-58157-564-4 (e-book)

For my husband, Piotr Zin.
Thank you for your patience and love always,
but especially when Im at my craziest.
And for sharing this strange and delicious
journey with me.

THE TRUTH IS THAT IVE NEVER REALLY KNOWN WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE. IVE HAD IDEAS about how to livework tirelessly until I am successful (arbitrary)and ideas about how not to livejust do nothing and see what happens (chaotic). But no matter what I do, it always comes back to my art. Weeks, months, even years can go by in utter confusion, but the moment I paint, I feel alive again, my vision clears, and whatever had been nagging mefears about aging, the ever-present uncertainty of the future, and general doubts about who I ambegin to work themselves out. This happened, most recently, a few months back, when I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in over a year and painted the ugliest cookie I had ever seen.

It was terrible, like, wtf happened to my hand (or brain) to have diminished my once-honed ability? I stared, dumbfounded, at the awfulness, and it stared back, challenging me to do better. Asking me why I had stopped painting, and demanding that I wake up and get my life in order. I wasted the entire day looking at cookie images, analyzing how other artists painted food, worrying about what to do, and finding nothing that could help me. It was not something that I could force, or mimic, or control; I had to trust myself. Instinctively, I chose the tiniest brush I owned and went to work. Unsure of what would come, I painted over the entire cookie.

This was hard to do because the piece was a watercolorto paint over it goes against all painterly common sense and technique. But I wasnt after tradition; I was aiming for whatever would make me feel better, even if, in the end I would throw it out and start all over again. I painted all night, and sometime during the process, I began to remember who I was, how much had changed, and why.

MY NAME IS SARA ZIN, and Im an average just turned 30 girl trying to make sense of a life gone unexpectedly off-plan. A few years ago, a dream of mine had been realized. I was living in New York City, working at a well-paying design company, and painting in every spare moment. Work-art, work-art, work-art, and all the while, the important thingsfood, sleep, love, lifehad taken a back seat to my grand plan. I had everything mapped out: You put the time and effort in, the universe meets you the rest of the way, and that is how shit gets done. It had worked this way all my lifewhy would it ever change?

Except, as my husband Piotr and I drove our rented U-Haul across the Brooklyn Bridge and into our new neighborhood, Piotrwho had put his faith in my decision to sell our house in Seattle, drive across America, and live in the most crowded city in the United States (even though he hates large cities)got a call from his dream employer asking if he was available to come to Los Angeles and work on a short-term project.

Seriously? I asked, incredulous. We havent even stepped onto the island! We spent five years in Seattle praying for such a call. It has to come now?!

After the initial exasperation, we both agreed that he should take the job. It was only a short project, and then hed come back and find a job in NYC. Once we found our new apartment and unloaded the truck, he returned to the West Coast, leaving me alone in that strange but holy city, to work and paint like the proud machine I had become. Needless to say, this interruption was not in my script, but a dream is still a dream, and I could check Living in NYC off lifes to-do list. Next itemBecome a starving artist. How hard could that be? Just dont eat. Piotr was the chef anywayI never learned how to cook, having grown up with fast food and microwaveable dinners, too busy with my own interests to ever stay in the kitchen with my mother or grandmother.

As I settled into the city, I had more time than ever to paint. I was free to structure my days as I wantedno husband to come home to, a comfortable job, and no friends to distract me. Only, I started noticing an emptiness building inside me. I couldnt understand what it was. I would come home from work, wrap my wrist for the nightly strain of holding a brush, paint until the early morning, and sleep a few hours before going to work again.

When I painted, I felt calmthis was exactly where I belonged. Free from my constant questioning and brutal self-recrimination. I felt allowed to experiment, to make mistakes. But somewhere between the validation I was receiving in the gallery world and my desire to be worthy, I lost my mind. I thought I wanted success, but really, I wanted people to love me. I looked around at the artists in the city, and felt that they were all going in a different, more correct direction than I was. These people had something to say, a message, however beautiful or inarticulate or grotesque. But what did I have to say? How could I gain their love?

Work harder, mail this painting to that gallery, then start the next one. Apply for more shows. Send out my portfolio, go to galleries, go to museums, come back home and paint. Do it again. Life went on like this for a few months until I started to crumble like a stale cookie. I was exhausted, I was hungry, I didnt know what to paintId lost any sense of a message inside me long ago. Piotrs project kept getting extended. One month apart became six months, then a year.

I asked myself over and over, What do I have to say? What do I believe in? But I loved only the act of painting. Couldnt art exist simply because it made me happy? Was that not worthy or meaningful? The only thing I had believed in was the plan, but that was breaking down. Was coming to NYC all a mistake? Had I uprooted my life, ruined the things that were working on some vague notion of how to be an artist? I had become a starving artist, as I had wanted but not in the way I had wanted. I was literally starving, but for what?

I needed something sweet. I wanted my life to be like it was when my grandma would give me a cookie and hold me when I was scared. I stopped doing and started being, as memories flooded over me, past and present blurring together. I felt so lost. I wandered around the city and passed strangers, heard their excitement and hope, the kind Id once oozed. But now, a cold sweat formed underneath all my layers of clothes, my toes numb from walking, my belly grumbling, my head spinning. As I opened my eyes to the dream I followed, everything became a question.