The Readable Feast: On Jenni Ferrari-Adler's Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone
by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

We all know that food is a necessity, but more importantly, it's a pleasure—hence the reason that an interest in the origins of our food, and stories of both food done well and food gone wrong, have become so prevalent as of late. But there's a hidden underbelly of food, which we all know and love, yet rarely ever speak of: the food that we eat when we're alone. When you know you're going to have the kitchen to yourself, that no one will be watching, what do you indulge in? Are you a closet caviar eater, not wanting to share even an egg with anyone else, or do you go for the carrot sticks dipped in canned chocolate frosting (may sound nasty, but trust me, there's someone out there who just gasped that their secret passion was revealed)? Do you spend hours creating a fabulous dish from that intimidating cookbook by that chef you read about, which you bought simply because the cover made you drool, or do you crack open the nearest box of Ho-Hos and slather them in chocolate syrup, just because you can? Does the guilt rack you to the point that you have to eat standing over the sink, or do you luxuriate in the wrongness of it all, stretching out on the sofa with your beloved something that you wouldn't tell a soul that you actually ingest? In Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, editor Jenni Ferrari-Adler works her magic and somehow gets some of the most prominent and well respected food writers to divulge their deep dark secrets of "sole" food. Hilarity, along with some really great (and heretofore secret) recipes, ensues.

While it may be common for an essay on food to make you think, it's not every day that the same essay makes you laugh out loud. Then again, it's not every day that you find an anthology of food narratives in which Nora Ephron is included as an author! Ferrari-Adler starts off her anthology with the essay from which she borrows her book's title, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant" by Laurie Colwin. Colwin is the kind of writer who immediately makes you feel like you're reading a letter from an old friend: familiar, unpretentious, and really funny. She understands the deep joy that is toasted cheese, is not afraid of failing miserably at fondue, and managed to be content, if not happy, with cooking for both company and herself in the nonexistent kitchen in her Greenwich Village apartment, which was "the size of a placemat."

Jeremy Jackson's article "Beans and Me" focuses on the ingredient that has often been the friend of many a lone diner: the bean. He manages to give a personality to this lowly legume (particularly the black bean), and offers an incredibly simple recipe for "Black Beans for One," which is surprisingly tasty. In "The Legend of Salsa Rosa," Ben Karlin offers a useful set of lessons for the beginning solo chef, learned through his own initial attempts: "1) one cannot bake a potato in a microwave oven, 2) exploding glass is scary, and 3) a pound of spaghetti, even if it ultimately becomes one noodle, is too much for one person to eat." He also teaches us the meaning of the word "gorgle," which is a handy icebreaker at any dinner party, and provides a lovely recipe for Salsa Rosa, the dish that "changed the very course of [his] life."

And no food narrative would be complete without an appearance by the eminent M.F.K Fisher, the Grand Dame of food writing. Only she can capture with both exquisite eloquence and biting humor the tragedy that is Jell-O salad: "It is based on a packaged gelatin mixture which is almost a staple food in America. To be at its worst, which is easy, this should be pink, with imitation and also packaged whipped milk on top. To maintain this gastronomical level, it should be served in "salad" form, a small quivering slab upon a wilted lettuce leaf, with some such boiled dressing as the one made from the rule my maternal grandmother handed down to me… that succeeds in producing, infallibly, a kind of sour, pale custard, blandly heightened by stingy pinches of mustard and salt, and made palatable to the most senile tongues by large amounts of sugar and flour and good water." Enough said.

Sometimes we plan for it, sometimes we trip upon it, sometimes we wish against it, but we've all been in the position of eating alone. And loved every minute of it. Alone in the Kitchen celebrates these times and encourages us to appreciate them, regardless of what personal delicacy you happen to indulge in at the time. I mean, really—who wants to turn on the oven and dirty up dishes when we all know that it's the chocolate-chip cookie dough that really tastes so good?

Recipes from American Food Writing:

Truffled Egg Toast

Single Girl Salmon

Dan Chaon's Chili

Grill-Curried Shrimp Quesarito with Avocado Raita