Dixon - Cooking for Gracie : the making of a parent from scratch

Copyright 2011 by Keith Dixon

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this book, along with their accompanying recipes, originally appeared in slightly different form in The New York Times:

Racket in the Kitchen, Ruckus in the Crib, from The New York Times, February 27, 2008 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited.

Momma, Ill Have Some of Whatever Youre Having, from The New York Times, October 1, 2008 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited.

Drinks to Leave You Laid Back, Not Laid Out, from The New York Times, March 4, 2009 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request

eISBN: 978-0-307-59189-0

Jacket design by Jean Traina
Jacket photographs Sang An

v3.1

For my mother and father

Special thanks to Ellen Levine,
who kept going long after others had given up

I am what is classically labeled, in domestic circles, an accidenta whoops and oops and look what the stork brought surprise of the highest order. My parents are altogether upbeat about this. In fact, my father once reminded me that its the things that dont turn out the way you expect that make life worth living. Still, whenever I reflect on my accidental status, I cant help picturing my mother standing with the phone pressed to her ear, two boys already raging around the apartment, a trembling hand lightly touching her brow as the doctor delivers the results of the pregnancy test.

Symmetrically, my daughter, Gracie, also didnt arrive according to planor rather, she didnt arrive according to the plan my wife, Jessica, and I had formulated. Instead, Gracie showed up according to her planwhich is to say that she showed up five weeks early and at about half the weight one would expect for a new baby. Her abrupt arrival foretold other unexpected shocks, a chain of surprises involving Gracies eating, her teeth, our sleep. Ive always been a cooking fiend, someone who spends as much of his free time as possible at the chopping block and burner, so its no surprise that many of these changes first made themselves known in the kitchen. Appropriately, it was the skills I refined in the kitchen as I began to cook for my daughter that helped me meet the challenges that took place outside the kitchen. Some of these skills related to advance planning, but for the most part they were about learning to acclimatize quickly to the unexpectedI learned to adapt in the kitchen; then, by extension, I learned to adapt elsewhere. When I look back on my first year as a parent, everything about it seems to tie in to cooking for Gracie.

(To be sure, not all of the recipes here are what new parentsthose marathoners, those Iron Men of the witching hourwant to tackle when they finally have a free moment. Rest assured there are plenty of simpler recipes insidein the November chapter, for example, and the December chapter, which has a recipe with only five ingredients [two of which are salt and pepper] and the September chapter, which has simple grilling recipesthat were engineered to yield the greatest amount of satisfaction with the least amount of effort. If I seem a little naive for offering up a recipe for a three-hour braised short rib, well, I am. For people like me, especially in regard to the kitchen, less is never more. For people like me, only more is more. Its my hope that the tired reader who just wants something to eat, and the less hassle the better, will forgive me these ten-step epics and will instead flip to some of those less demanding recipes.)

A few of the chapters herein were first published in the New York Timesas I was writing them I thought they were just simple food pieces offering kitchen tips to other enthusiastic home cooks struggling against the challenges of cooking with and for a child. But around the time of my daughters first birthday, I began to realize that maybe there was a unifying idea to be found there, a singularity that applied to something more wide reaching than a newspaper article.

This book ends with all three principals happy and healthywhich means its a success story. But it begins with the narrator in a state of relative crisis, as any responsible book should. Too, it begins at night, because a real crisis always takes place after nightfall, and the later the better. The narrator has just realized that life no longer operates according to his schedule and that the kitchen may offer clues on how best to adapt.

My past informs this present. For stated reasons, I have a solemn appreciation for the experience to be gained when life sweeps parents away into something that isnt quite what theyd planned. It would be nice if there were more accidents like these up ahead. I bet theyll give me some good stories to tell.

Just weeks into the experience of parenthood, I seem to experience a fresh epiphany about every other daymoments of clarity, addicts call them, in which the camera lens of life is screwed sharply into focus and the afflicted suddenly realizes what path he must take.

Im having a moment of clarity now, alone here in my kitchen at night, where Im spooning and spooning cold cereal. This is dinner these days: standing at the kitchen window with a bowl of breakfast. Im nettled by problems with sleep, and with timing, and with other things. The hour is late enough that even the pointillist panorama of New York, a city Ive called home for fifteen years, seems almost subdued; York Avenue, five stories below, is nearly deserted, and taxis streak by only occasionally. Summer is barely hanging on, having exhausted itself with hot September. The scene appears tranquil to the naked eye, but its really notif this kitchen were the galley of a Boeing jet, the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign would be blinking right now, directing all passengers to buckle up and prepare for terrible turbulence. Ive ruined dinner, blackened it to the panthe haze hanging below the ceiling is the proof. My wife, Jessica, and I were going to eat six pristine lamb chops an hour ago, but as we sat down at the table our weeks-old daughter, Grace, gave a cry of hunger from her roomand I looked up with the troubled expression of a picnicker who hears distant thunder.