shedding quiet strong

I met with a writer last week. We perched on dark stools at the bar of Legal Seafoods in Cambridge, stapled packets of my writing spread out between glasses of crisp white wine in front of us. He was wearing a loose fitting blue sweater with the logo of a magazine he writes for emblazoned on the side arm. A head of gray hair fully mopped his forehead; he peered at me through wide rimmed glasses. We met to critique my writing, to go over future options, to help me find my way in a world that is no longer going revolve mainly around vats of chicken stock. The time he took, in the midst of deadlines and book tours, was stunningly helpful. The comments he made rang true.

You put yourself on the sidelines of your writing, Molly. You don’t show yourself, not your real self, the one that becomes apparent when meeting you in person. Don’t be afraid to let it out there.

I know he’s right. It’s amazing what a slam of realization an unbiased, outside perspective can give. He asked me, after a poignant pause; Were you depressed after the accident?

What?

Have you ever been depressed?

You can’t tell from my writing?

No.

It struck me suddenly, without abandon, that I have become very good at masking what’s hard. I often use writing to make myself feel better about what is difficult. If I focus on hope and happiness, no matter its miniscule weight in the face of the mountain of difficulty, I do feel better. It makes sense and I don’t think that this is wrong, certainly not in my personal writing. Nor, in all likelihood, will I be willing or able to stop doing it all together. But it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more honest with myself as I write. Lacking honesty may not be the best way to describe my tendencies; I don’t lie to myself, ignoring the difficult feelings when they come. I am simply not fully inclusive. It wouldn’t hurt to give some voice to the weakness and depression, to stop hiding behind a consistently quiet strong.

Yes, I have been depressed, I said. The words wanted to stay in my throat, confusing me with their unwilling stagnancy. They didn’t want to be expressed. There were a few weeks after the accident that I looked in the mirror and couldn’t remember who I was beyond ‘injured’; when I spoke I didn’t recognize my own voice it was too deep with pain, like a stranger had taken over my voice box.

If you are going to be depressed, Molly, be depressed. Don’t hide in your writing.

And so, in honor of my writer friend who wants some more dark honesty, at this moment in time I feel terrified. I’m moving to New York City in two weeks. I don’t have much of a plan beyond ‘find a job’. I bounced not one but two checks last week. One of my closest friends, Alex, who had been in Boston helping me throughout my entire recovery, moved recently to California, leaving me with the constant hum of loneliness. Becca is moving to Virginia in two weeks; she is now spending a transitional fortnight with her boyfriend’s parents in upstate New York. It is Valentines Day and I haven’t had a good date in over a year. As I write this post I am doing temp work in the window-less administrative office of a local university.

And still, in the name of honesty, I feel simultaneously good. Hopeful for what’s to come; proud of my stab at a new life sans injury.

Becca came to visit me this past weekend and, before the snow came and we were consumed with snow-shoveling duties, we went out to eat. I had a gift certificate to a local Vietnamese restaurant, a holiday present on hold, which we decided to use with thankful gusto. We sat at a small table in a dimly lit back corner of the loud, laughing room and perused the menu. I looked at the white cardboard certificate, contemplating the full dollar worth of options in front of us.

We could just get appetizers and entrees and have enough left over to come again some other time, Becca said, pragmatically.

True, I said, contemplating the possibilities; Or, we could get the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu and way more food than we could possibly eat.

Oh yeah?

Yes, lets totally do it. When in our lives will we ever again be able to order the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu as a celebration of a week that included bouncing TWO checks and moving in with your boyfriend’s parents. And we can always eat the leftovers for breakfast.

Alright, I’m in.

Toasting with the cool, money-laden bite of a chilled Pouilly-Fume, we ate crisp roasted quail with lemongrass and a lingering spicy crunch. We tried light pink shrimp cakes grilled around spears of sugar cane, oddly omelet-like in consistency, sweetly seafood. Crispy spring rolls, curried light tofu with a silken bite of peanut, a salty soy sauce finish; sweet crackling fried banana doused in honey-rum sauce and toasted sesame seeds.

It was delicious, extended. Hours later (when our waiter, bemused by the unstoppable laughter. asked us if you would perhaps like some hot water?) we were quite tipsy, quite full, and feeling at least somewhat at peace with our current unstable positions in life.

We had no food leftover at the end of the night. I figure we need to stock up, like bears before hibernation, for an immediate future devoid of luxuries such as restaurant gift certificates.

PS. I know this has a happy ending; I can't help myself. I'm working on it.

Remembrance of Meatballs Past

A knock at the door. Becca's quizzically raised eyebrows, not expecting company. A matronly dressed, thick woman with gigantic dark glasses stood in the hall. Becca’s landlady; she lives in the upstairs apartment.

Oh hello, she smiled hesitantly, I was walking upstairs to my apartment this morning and I could smell what you were cooking – like a fried meatball was it? – and it smelled exactly like my grandmother’s cooking. I went to my son and said; ‘Do you think grandma is downstairs?’ and I had tears in my eyes.

The words came pouring out in quick flowing jumble. She seemed to have tears glistening in her eyes right at that moment, standing there in the hall.

It reminded me so much of my childhood. I grew up here in the house, you know. It smelled like Grandma. And yesterday too – I swear I could smell stuffed peppers cooking down here. I could smell my family. It's Grandma, I said. It’s my childhood. You must be a great cook.

Becca smiled, touched. Oh thank you! Quite surprised, her landlady has always been distant, remote, communicating largely through tersely written notes. MOVE YOUR CAR. LOCK THE DOOR. But the surprising hint of tears glinting in the plumply dark haired woman was very humanizing.

When the door closed and the landlady returned to her second floor living space (where beginning around 7am sounds like a lot of floorboard thumping square dance practice goes on), Becca shrugged and laughed.

Well that’s the most she’s talked to me all year, she said.

Strange, though, how last night’s truffled risotto*, seared scallops and chocolate cake were the olfactory equivalent of stuffed peppers – and this morning’s frittata and orange muffins were fried meatballs.

Her sense of smell is a bit off, huh.

Better than mine though. I would kill to smell some meatballs.

But no matter how off she was, in the odors emanating from the tiny apartment kitchen she smelled her grandmother, her childhood. It was touching to see her strong reaction to the smells of our weekend of cooking. And I can relate to smelling memories.

Becca and I, clad in pajamas and never very far from a glass of crisp white wine, baked a tremendous chocolate cake on Saturday night. We stirred and evenly poured thick the cake batter into two round cake pans. We made a smooth, rich, brown icing that clung frothily to the beaters. This was all accompanied by some rousing singing duets (renditions of a few old time classics) that competed tunelessly well with the noise of the landlady’s early morning floor stomping. And when we, 35 minutes later, pulled the deeply colored cakes out of the oven, I was shocked by the overwhelming scent that fairly assaulted my nose. The warm, buttery chocolate odor hung around my head, swam down my throat.


Only recently have I been able to smell scents in the air – detecting odors without practically having to stick them up my nose and concentrating. I was sidelined in the grocery store the other day when I walked through the produce section and, all of a sudden, smelled laundry. Clean, strong, potent. I was confused, momentarily, until I realized I was a few feet away from a display case of detergent. Smelling something that far away from me is new. The moment I walked into the kitchen and smelled cake my smile took over my face.

And it was not only a smell – it was a memory of all those times Becca and I had baked, sang, laughed, danced around our shared college apartment with gleeful, worry-free abandonment. I haven’t felt like that in what now seems like a long time. But I saw it with clear vibrancy in that smell.

I stuck my nose right above those cakes, feeling the steam, breathing in the smell – a happy moment. It was, on a side note, one of the best cakes I’ve eaten.


In the touching vision of her grandmother, Becca’s landlady smelled a piece of her childhood, a sense of safety and home. And in that late-night chocolate cake I, too, smelled a similar feeling. A memory of past fun; the present of deep friendship and its future strength. Whether it is found in imaginary fried meatballs or concretely delicious chocolate cake, smell has the ability to paint a vivid picture of home.

*Yes, Becca keeps white truffle oil around in her pantry. (This is just one of the many reasons why I love her).



Chocolate Layer Cake
Recipe adapted from Epicurious

For cake
2 cups flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk

For frosting
2/3 cup whole milk
3 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
8 oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

1. Put oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 350 F. Butter two round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper, butter the parchment and then dust all with flour.

2. For the cake, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into a bowl.

3. Beat the butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each until incorporated. Add chocolate and vanilla and beat until combined. On low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk in small batches until all incorporated.

4. Divide batter between cake pans and bake (until wooden skewer poked into the center of the cake comes out clean) 25-35 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes, remove from cake pans, peel off the parchment paper, and then let cool completely.

5. For the frosting: Heat milk over moderate heat until hot.

6. Whisk together yolks, flour, 1/3 cup confectioners sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add hot milk in a stream, whisking. Transfer to saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat, whisking again. Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes (still whisking). Transfer to large bowl. [Here, Epicurious wants you to let the custard cool for 45 minutes before finishing the frosting. We have done that before while making this cake. Last weekend we didn't (we weren't really in a waiting-for-cake mood) - we used the hot custard to finish the frosting and everything turned out beautifully].

7. Add vanilla and remaining confectioners sugar and beat until well combined. Add butter, beat until smooth. Add chocolates, continue beating. At this point we left the room, the mixer on medium speed and came back around 7 minutes later. The frosting was light and fluffy - the perfect consistency for spreading on the cake.

8. Frost the cake. [Despite our generously applied frosting technique, we had quite a bit left over. We could even have halved the recipe, I think.]

Yak Butter with a Side of Bison

I was walking, crunching steps, on the freshly packed snow at the foot of Jackson Hole’s ski mountain one morning last week. It was bright out, the sun shining after a night of snowfall; the whiteness hurt my eyes. The air was crisply cold; a gentle mist of snow was tossed up by the skiers frequently flying by towards the close base lodge. I was following a bright red coat in front of me, walking in a small group of fashionably dressed women. My dad and step-mom take a trip out west every year to ski with a group of their friends. My brother, step-brother, step-sisters and I often come along. Despite the fact that I couldn’t ski (tragic in the face of all that powder) because of my knee, I went to Wyoming for some not often had family time.

During the day, however, I found myself in an oddly formed group of fellow non-skiers, mainly stylish career moms married to the more fanatical powder hounds. Our group ‘walks’ mainly hovered around the cluster of shops near the hill. It was an interesting jump into an unaccustomed slice of life for me, being 20 years younger and infinitely less monetarily endowed. I had, in the end, a good deal of thinking time in the company of my misplaced self. My mind wandered in disjointed musings while on these walks, the smallest comment inspiring a multitude of thoughts.

One morning I met up with my fellow non-skiers, my bright orange shoulder bag dangling in my hand, prepared to later plant myself in a coffee shop with a book.

That’s a nice bag, Molly, said one woman, ripe in a lime green fur-lined parka and Burberry scarf. It’s very bright. Um, very bright. A small frown of disapproval.

Yes, Molly, very bright, said another. Her white fur lined parka glistened against the snowy background. Very earthy. It looks… Tibetan. You look… Tibetan. Eyebrows raised. Did you buy that there? Have you… been to Tibet?

I could see that ‘Tibetan’ was not meant, really, to be a compliment.

Thanks, I said smiling. But this bag is from Italy.

***

The small room was filled with smoke. The evening light was fading; only a trickle reaching us through the gaping hole in the roof. The hazy darkness filled the space, pushing against the dirt floor and walls, flickering hesitantly around the small cooking fire in the center of the room. I could hardly see the people surrounding me. Their talk was quiet, a melodious harmony of a Tibetan dialect that I could barely register. A heavy black pot of boiling water added its steam to the already viscous air. There were children; I smiled as they crouched behind their mother’s backs, confused by my new presence. There were women; dark skin toughened by the sun, dark hair wrapped tightly on their heads, traditional deep red chupa dresses were draped around their earthy bodies. They smiled, laughed, exclaimed and whispered. They looked at me intently, touched my large curly head of hair curiously. Small postcards of Buddhist gods, larger ones of the Dalai Lama were perched by the walls. Chipped china cups clinked; the small blanket I was sitting on was hard. I was overwhelmed.

It was July of 2000, and along with six other American students and two ex-Peace Corp members, I had spent three weeks backpacking up rocky paths into the mountain range of Nepal’s Dolpo region. We were in a land without roads or runways, too high for easy helicopter travel, most often traveled by yak herders and foot-bound salt traders. We reached a small village close to the Tibetan border after a good deal of freeze-dried chili and a slow trudge over an airless, 18,000 foot pass. It was one of the few remaining communities of pure Tibetan culture and language, untouched by the Chinese, protected by Nepal’s boundaries. Each member of the group was ceremoniously deposited with a local family in a small, stilted hut. We were intensively submerged in rural Tibetan farm culture for a few weeks while we taught English in the local school. I spoke close to zero Tibetan; it was my first time manning a classroom. We were some of the first foreigners to visit the village. My white skin and glow-in-the-dark wrist watch were alarming to those around me. That first night near the smoky fire of my host family was one of confused communication and the constant patter of gentle anxiety somewhere near my lungs.

That first evening, lost in the haze of smoky Tibetan chatter, I watched as a small blue cup, steaming with frothy tan liquid, was placed in front of me on the protective stone of the fire ring. Next to it a matching bowl was clanked down, filled with a light brown powdery flour.

The men of the village, mainly salt merchants, were on their annual trading pilgrimage across the border to Tibet and I was in a world of women. A small group of them clustered around the fire in my host-family’s hut; they stopped what they were doing and looked at me intently. I knew I was supposed to do something. I knew, from the instruction of my Peace Corp leaders, that it was a special guest’s honor to be served first. In that subtle realm of politeness, it was imperative that I finish with relish the food given to me. And so I clasped the cup, smelling a strikingly savory odor in its loud steam. Thu-chi che, I said; Thank you. The women giggled, watching. I took a sip. It was tea, but oh what a tea. My eyes watered, my mouth shocked by the unexpected intensity. It was my first, but certainly not my last, taste of the Tibetan staple. Yak Butter Tea - salted black tea churned with a thick chunk of yak butter.

The brawny, altitude-loving yak has withstood the difficult living situation of the Tibetan plateau for centuries in a way no vegetable ever could. Therefore, a huge hunk of the culinary tradition there hinges on that hairy animal. Over time, I became intimately acquainted with all sorts of yak products. Yak beef, yak cloth, yak-hair rope, yak cheese, yak milk, yak jerky, yak hide, yak labor, and of course, yak butter. Six years later, I still clearly remember the shock of my first slick gulp. The texture of its thickly coating bulk coupled with the salty tang of its uncommon butter makes for an alarmingly unexpected tea experience.

I smiled widely, though, hiding my initial distaste with an overwhelming show of gratitude. The women around me clapped with excitement. I felt happy. Everyone else began to eat; my attention refocused on the bowl of flour in front of me. Without some kind of visual lead I never would have been able to consume that bowl of tsampa with any kind of grace. Tsampa, a roasted barley ground into flour, is another staple of Tibetan diet in the Nepalese region I was in. I watched as my host-mother, her newborn baby girl cradled deftly in her lap, poured some of her thick tea into the bowl of tsampa, creating a more congealed, dough-like conglomeration. She ate it with her fingers, my eyes watching her every move. I imitated her, sucking the flour off of my fingers. It tasted nutty and dry, sticking slightly to the roof of my mouth, bland without the salty tea.

After a week of little beyond the yak butter tea and tsampa I was more than ready to never lay eyes on the combination again. But that first night, surrounded by a strange culture, crackling fire and giggling children, yak butter and barley flour felt like a strangely celebratory entrance into an unknown world.

I left that village in Dolpo with priceless teaching experience, a smattering of Tibetan language knowledge, a dire need for donuts, and a deeply embedded respect for the women I lived with. I have never seen such hard workers. I watched them working from dawn til dusk in the fields, eyes watering constantly from the smoky cooking fire, subsisting on little more than butter and flour. Even Lahkpa, my 8-year-old host sister, worked with amazing diligence, caring for her newborn baby sister. She walked me to school every morning even though her duties kept her from attending, her short black hair tussled, her little sister strapped to her back with a large, dirt stained cloth. The constant companion of Lhakpa’s crooked smile is something I will never forget. She was always smiling, laughing. Always singing and moving. Perhaps yak butter does more for you than the initial cringe would suggest.

***

Despite the time I have had in the last few months, I was surprised during my stay in Wyoming last week to feel as if I was finally able to think – to think about things far removed from health, doctors, future plans. I was pleased by the turns in my memory; I had not thought about Nepal or Tibet in a long time. Jackson Hole itself was accompanied by a grand number of buffalo burgers and elk steaks. Bison carpaccio was an interesting jump into the unknown for me. But nothing, certainly, could rival that past novelty of tsampa and yak butter. Wyoming couldn’t give me any yak butter tea, but it did give me a calm chunk of time to think (and a newfound love of chandeliers made with antlers, of course).

The Power of the Truffle

A bright copper pan was gently placed on the portable burner, perched on a cart, silently wheeled to the edge of our table. The tall, gray-haired waiter wearing a hefty black jacket and white apron synched around the girth of his belly dropped a generous dollop of butter onto the pan. As it melted, bubbling yellow, he picked up a shining metal instrument and a small bobble of bulbous black. In a theatrically rehearsed gesture, he slowly shaved the coveted black truffle over the sizzling butter. He lifted the heavy top off of another nearby pan, exposing a mound of freshly made, steaming pasta. The slithering strings of egg noodles were ceremoniously dropped into the truffled butter, tossed slowly and fastidiously over the low flame until the entire dish gleamed. The pasta landed with a calm flop onto an enormous white plate, placed neatly in front of the wide-eyed Charley, my mother’s hungry boyfriend. The waiter smiled as he shaved a bit more dark truffle on top. I drank the unforgettable, earthy aroma of truffles into my very pores. That pasta was not even something that I had ordered; I probably passed over the simple dish for something more complicated, something of which I have no memory. I did help Charley clean his plate, however. And that meal certainly stands out in my mind.

The rich aroma and deep flavor of truffles – mainly the scorzone estivo, or mild black truffle, harvested largely in the Umbrian countryside of Italy during the summer months – were constant companions in my trip this past August. A truffle-studded pecorino cheese with crusty bread and red wine for a tipsily picnic lunch; a light, crispy pizza bubbling from the wood-fired oven and covered in light, sliced truffle; truffle paste on crackers, shaved over pasta, prancing through my sun-induced afternoon dreams. Even while hiking each day through the crackling Umbrian woods, my eyes were constantly drawn to small neon-yellow rectangles of plastic perched on long metal skewers, nestled alongside the trails at regular intervals. Raccolata Tartufi Reservata, they said, humming with possibility. We were in truffle hunting grounds. There are truffles everywhere, I often told myself. Never really having experienced that uniquely earth-bound flavor before that trip, I thought of them with awe. I was surprised and delighted by their abundance. I loved imagining their delicacy constantly underfoot in the woods, on my plate in restaurants.

***

And so in the last few months, glancing at the small glass jar perched hauntingly on the window sill of my kitchen, its red cap softly shadowing a luscious black Umbrian truffle, I have felt a wave of sadness. The flavor of truffle, I can only imagine, comes mainly from its unique aroma. After all, around 70% of taste is appreciated through smell. An odorless truffle cannot stand alone. I would not go anywhere near the thing. Being physically close to that truffle, thinking even a tiny bit about what I had wanted to use it for made me angry. It represented the proof of my loss of smell. And this, somewhere in the back of my mind, felt as if it rendered my trip to Italy invalid. It made that wonderful time cease to exist. I didn’t move the jar, though; I didn’t want to touch it. That poor little truffle, still sitting so calmly on the window, took a lot of mental heat for things it had nothing to do with this fall.

The truffle and I, however, are now on better footing. We seem to have made some progress. Perhaps even a glimpse of friendship lurking close by.

I spent New Year’s weekend in New York City. A few days of friends, museums and champagne; it was boisterous, fun, far from being injured. I even wore heels (quite a feat after the past months of limping around Boston I must say). And on that Friday night my friend John and I went out for a cozy dinner in Little Italy. We split a bronzed pizza, gooey with mozzarella and mushrooms, sprinkled with rosemary and truffle oil. Delicious in its own right, of course. But when a vivid image of that large, truffle-shaving Italian waiter immediately came to mind as I chewed, swallowed and slowly exhaled, I knew it was a bit more than that. I could taste the truffle; a rich, familiarly earthy aroma traveled from the depth of my throat out through my nose. It tasted like Italy; it fairly tingled with possibility.

***

Recently I’ve been thinking about my smells that have returned. The scents that I can detect most strongly these days are all tied to meaning greater than a simple odor. The fruity tang of wine is a thousand memories of friends, family, travel and cooking tied up in each sip. Rosemary’s smell blew through my consciousness even more frequently in Italy than that of truffles; the wildly growing rosemary bushes perfumed my hair, clothes, thoughts. The subtle perfume of soap, one of the first odors I regained, is the comforting familiarity of daily clean. The scents of chocolate, coffee and cinnamon, slowly coming back around to my olfactory registration, immediately conjure up thoughts of home, winter evenings with my mom. Truffles have become Italy; a country I fell in love with while studying art history in Florence, a place I’ll always return to. And I can’t help but wonder why I am so lucky as to get back the smells that mean the most to me. It is as if my emotions, memories and thoughts (however unconscious) are influencing the speed and strength of my olfactory neuronal growth. A strange thought; one that my mother the psychoanalyst finds strikingly interesting and one that I would love to be true. If I think about it really hard, perhaps I’ll soon stumble onto the smell of freshly baked bread, warm out of the oven. If my subconscious has the power to reinstate the truffle, truly anything is possible.

A Finalist in the Food Blog Awards!

I recently found out that I was nominated and am now a finalist for Best Writing in the 2005 Food Blog Awards. I am surprised (and exceptionally excited) – thank you to all who nominated (and all who vote for) my little blog. I’m up against some big contenders in this category and feel quite honored to be amongst such wonderful writers. Vote away!

my favorite dishwasher

I was expecting a call from my father, my cell phone balancing expectantly on my knee as my mother and I drove the icy road to Vermont on Christmas Eve. When the clanging ring sliced through our festive background music of Handel’s Messiah, I picked up the phone quickly, ready to fill my dad in on the results of my week at UConn Taste and Smell Center. But instead of his usual loud phone greeting, I heard a crackling static and a quiet, Molly? Hola? Molly?

Yes? I asked, hesitantly, vaguely aware of the familiarity in the voice.

Molly? Hola! Como estas? And then it hit me; who else would call me speaking in a gentle Spanish? It was S., my dishwashing partner from the Bistro that I worked in this summer, a surprise call on a snowy Christmas weekend. I yelled out his name with an excitement that startled my driving mother, babbling my happiness at hearing his voice in an extremely incongruous Spanish-English-Italian mix. I had not spoken to him since my last day of work, over four months ago.

I surprised myself with the ease in which I could eventually switch to Spanish. Despite my meager understanding of the language, the majority of my vocabulary hinging on words pertaining to dishwashing, we had a working conversation. I filled him in on my accident, lightly, without much detail; he was shocked and delighted that I am now ok. He told me that The Chef is still loco y enojado; J. was fired a few months ago (as well as four other dishwashers who came one by one to replace me). S. is still in the dark hallway of the bistro’s prep arena every night, washing those heavy white dishes and chopping mounds of garlic and onions. It was somehow shocking to realize that the life I lead this summer still continues, simply without me there.

He recently acquired a phone, luckily having saved the phone number that I handed him on my last night of work in August. He called to say Feliz Navidad and to see how I was. I was touched to hear his voice, to hear his concern, to remember the unexpected connection of friendship that we made despite our difference in background and future.

Before hanging up, he softly, with clear intonation said Es bueno que usted no es un lavaplatos. Pero tu era mi favorito companero de trabajo. He never did understand why I was washing dishes with him, never thought it was a good idea for the chica pequena to haul piles of plates all hours of the night. He is glad that I no longer live that life. But the fact that I was his favorite gives me a glow of pride. I was surprised by his call; it hit me like the sudden shot of steam coming out of the bistro’s sanitizer door after a mountain of pots and pans were fitted in for cleaning. Except, I suppose, this burst of steam didn’t come into an exhausted face in a 112 degree kitchen at 2am. It was a deluge of comforting warmth on a chilly winter afternoon. I’m happy to know S. is doing well and that we have the ability to continue our mismatched friendship. It’s a good thought with which to bring in the New Year.

the unexpected scent of chocolate

I spent much of the week before Christmas at the UConn Health Center. A daily four hour commute of dry heat shooting up from the floorboard vents of my car, the constant sound of NPR swirling through the back of my mind, half-formed thoughts circling around my nose, and the muted color palette of leafless trees flitting past the frozen windows. Each morning, as I took exit 39 off of that bleak Interstate 84, a gnawing claw began in the pit of my stomach, growing in sensation as my car slowly wound its way up to the gigantic hospital perched on a hill. The UConn Health Center Hospital is a forbidding mass of gray, high up and alone, lording over the landscape. It reminded me of the Emerald City, far in the distance on my journey to Oz.

Inside that concrete castle is the small lair of the UConn Taste and Smell Center (cheerfully decorated with a battalion of cardboard Santas). There are only a few of these specialized centers concentrating on things such as loss of smell due to head trauma in the US; I’m lucky one exists close by. In my days there I was tested by neurologists, dentists, ENTs, surgeons and internists. I spent hours swishing clear liquids from miniature plastic cups around my mouth, each one a different strength of ‘bitter’ ‘salty’ ‘sweet’ or ‘sour’, to test my taste buds. I rated each of the seventy flavors on a scale of 1 (weak, a hint of salt lurking in the back of my mouth) to 10 (strong, almost gagging on the overpowering bitter of quinine). I breathed in deeply while puffing air from mystery bottles up my nose, trying to decipher which had the aroma of strong chemical and which was odorless (virtually impossible for me to tell). I sniffed mystery jars of familiar food smells, touched my finger to my nose, walked a straight line, said ahhh as they peered down my throat, grimaced as they inspected my teeth and tongue. They looked at my cranial MRI and sinus CT scans from last week, the multitude of head x-rays from the accident. They drizzled blue drops into my nostrils, causing me to lose feeling in my nose and mouth, while they stuck a long devise practically up to my brain, looking for unknown obstructions.

And in the end, after a bleary 5am drive in the darkness of Friday morning and long final inspection, they gave me their final report. The head doctor, an elderly man with soft wrinkles and a piercingly sharp gaze, looked at me for a moment, silent and sincere. Just when I began to feel uncomfortable he gave me a gentle smile and said Work is therapy, Molly. Stay busy.

I was confused by his response. Confused and a bit deflated. But it soon became clear that the solution to this problem is nothing but time.

The olfactory nerve, they explained with the help of colorfully simplified medical diagrams, is studded with small neurons that curl off to connect the nose and transfer the smell sensations to the brain. When I was hit by the car and fractured my skull, my brain bounced roughly in my head. Those small smell neurons were most likely severed in the trauma. Optimistic, however, was a word often used. They are optimistic my smell will return; my olfactory neurons will re-grow. The fact that I can smell a bit, greatly improved from the time of the accident, is a wonderful sign. The fact that I sometimes smell things that aren’t there (phantom smells, they call them) means that my nerve is already beginning to rebound. But this is a long process. Two to five years, they said. Perhaps even as many as seven.

A younger doctor bouncing energetically around the office smiled at me with confidence. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the bright red and green tie emblazoned with a cartoon Grinch in a red santa hat, nestled behind the stethoscope on his chest. If you had to damage a nerve, this was the best one to choose, he said softly as I tore my eyes away from his holiday get-up. Of all the nerves in your body, this one tries the hardest to regenerate.

And so I left Connecticut, driving directly to Vermont for the holidays, the official medical opinion about my smell ringing in my ears. Wait and see. Seven years from now. Optimism. Time. Olfactory regeneration.

And truthfully, I feel wonderful. As much as I would have loved to hear that my smell would be back in a few months without problem, I now feel buoyed up with hope. The official diagnosis of experts in the field of taste and smell has taken a huge weight off my shoulders. I know, now, what to expect. I understand what has happened and what needs to happen. I no longer feel in the dark. I am filled with possibility. The last of my large medical events is over and now all that’s left is the time to make a new plan.

It has been hard for me to write in the last few months, not sure of where my body, smell and general future stood. But things have cleared since the culmination of my smell evaluation, a fog evaporated from my mind. I spent the holidays in Vermont with my family and for the first time in months I felt that familiar passion to write, no longer needing to force myself to type. I curled up for hours in an armchair next to the constantly crackling fire and finally was able to write without painful effort.

The timeframe of olfactory regrowth forces me to look at the future with a new mindset. My plans are slowly moving away from the CIA and restaurant work. I am no longer going to work in the Bakery. I am thinking about other options, other things that I am passionate about. This certainly does not mean I am giving up my love of food and all that is culinary. But my body has changed; smell, taste and the subsequent ability to work in the food world are hovering somewhere in the distance. Instead of fighting the inevitable, feeling lost and unavoidably depressed in a kitchen where I cannot fully operate, I will be morphing my plans to cooperate with my body. How exactly? I’m not sure. It will be interesting and a bit confusing, certainly. Always accompanied here with writing and food, of course. It looks to involve a one-way ticket to New York City in the near future. And it will without a doubt be different than I expected.

***

One morning in the UConn Taste and Smell Center, I sat perched on a stool in the office of a lanky, bearded doctor. He was twisting open white plastic jars, their mystery contents covered in thick cheesecloth, and sticking them under my nose. I held one nostril closed at a time, testing each side of my nose in measured sniffs. Each jar held an invisible but familiar scent – woodchips, coffee, cinnamon, rubber, soap and jam to name just a few. The majority of jars whisked under my nose contained no odor for me. It was a large procession of scentless containers. But just when I was beginning to feel overly frustrated (and a bit short of breath with all the deep breathing), an unmistakable smell came bursting out of a jar through my right nostril with unabashed aggression. That’s CHOCOLATE, I practically screamed at the doctor, jumping to my feet in excitement. He looked at me, obviously shocked.

Chocolate? he asked, incredulously. You can smell that?

Yes, I said gleefully. He had me sniff again with the right side of my nose. Yup. That’s chocolate. He smiled and then had me sniff with my left nostril. My shoulders sunk, momentarily defeated. No, I can’t smell anything on that side.

The doctor looked off into space, thinking. He looked perplexed, yet the sides of his mouth were curved in a small but unmistakable smile.

This is unexpected, he said. Generally chocolate is not an odor that those who cannot smell first pick-up on. Very unexpected. But no matter what, even if only through your right nostril, this is wonderful.

And I felt like doing a little dance right there in that pristinely scrubbed doctor’s office. The taste of chocolate, the doctor told me, is almost entirely dependent on smell. Without the ability of my right nostril, chocolate would be nothing but a texture. And so, in the largely decimated field of my olfactory neurons, the one for chocolate stands strong. It’s a fighter, hanging in there despite its loneliness. Joined by the rosemary neuron and occasionally the soap and wine crew, this small band of my favorite neurons have most deliciously decided to stick around. So I’m happy. Unexpected, yes. All of this is unexpected. But my neurons and I will happily re-grow. And chocolate will certainly help.