When Paris and I began dating, I was in an odd stage of life: for seemingly the first time ever, optimism had become second nature. Scarcity vs abundant mindset was dubbed somewhere in the late 80s but seems to only have entered the zeitgeist within the last decade. There's truth to it, too; the inner expansion of your mind opens up the world larger than it ever could if you were only ever focused on its paucity. As one of my girlfriends often says, the world is your oyster! It always has been, but it's taken a decade for my palate and perspective to be able to appreciate it.
I had, before, this long-held belief that marriage and commitment was terrifying, backed by my inability to believe I was fully lovable. I'd heard all my life that I was complicated, a characteristic that has always been fully acknowledged by family, friends, teachers, and otherwise. Not necessarily in a negative way, but curious; something nobody can really pinpoint, but absolute in its conclusion. Complicated.
Complicated, like, I run away from everything right before it gets to the good part? Complicated, like how my worldview shifts so easily, not because of a lack of integrity, but how I prioritize curiosity and the acquisition of knowledge. Complicated, I guess, because I myself seem hard to pin down. The reason I know I am not unlovable is because nobody who loves me has required me to change this. There's just a quiet understanding of, this is who she is.
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Before I went to London last year, I was preparing for my first oversees flight in nearly a decade. I was visiting home for the week, and crouched in the closet, my cat's preferred hiding choice during thunderstorms. I pet the dark patch of fur on her little head to reassure her I'd never let anything hurt her, but also to acknowledge her fear, not to disregard it. Paris called me for the first time, I know, a phone call, so millennial of me. I just wanted to see if you were okay, I know you were anxious about your flight. He talked me down and I rubbed Forrest's ears, feeling equally as reassured.
Jenny and I joked a lot about our low expectations for British cuisine, which may have been the best case scenario: keeping our expectations low meant that the freshly battered and fried fish that greased our fingers tasted like gold, especially after walking miles in a heatwave. The chocolate mousse we kept in the mini-fridge as a midnight nosh felt like a real novelty and less like a 3£ donation to one of Nestle's subsidiaries. Food has always been terrifying to me; something to be earned or burned, cautious of, or indulgent; appreciating it for what it should be, that is, intersectional with culture, has finally allowed me to cherish it.
Maybe my relationship with food is a good insight into how I've treated my relationships with partners. Something akin to the fearful avoidant; a deep desire for something paired with distasteful fear, a terrible understanding that intimacy and sustenance are required for survival, and somehow, convincing myself otherwise. That I could go days without eating, and a lifetime without connection. That simple carbs were bad and so was a simple love; more importantly, that both were subjected to be earned with methods of pain.
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In this new relationship, with my new perspective, every night together provided some new dish from the whereabouts of Northeast LA, often accompanied with profound conversations about things like the CGI chimpanzee from Better Man, our mothers, and the correct noodle and bowl size when it came to consuming pho. I had been cracked open like the brown eggs in the morning breakfast I swore I'd never make for someone; I had begun to learn that food was such a sincere display of love, something that had taken me far too long to recognize.
We've filled up on pita and steak kebabs, spicy Asian broths that imparted us with 2 AM acid reflux, fluffy yellow Mexican rice, earthy vanilla matchas, cheesy pepperoni pizzas with crispy dough, and many sweets consisting of dark chocolate, raspberry, and Baskin Robbins sprinkles. On our first day in Santa Barbara this past April, we made our way to the pier, riding on baby blue rented cruiser bikes. I kept my mouth just slightly open to taste the cool air. We ordered fresh battered fish, and coffees. An obvious combination. We ate the fresh catch with a squeeze of lemon and vinegar, and stared out at the ocean, thankful for the oily cod, the bad, bitter coffee, and each other's presence.
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The last few months have been stressful; Noma LA had its last service this past Friday, and a rough residency overall. From the Redzepi abuse allegations, to the questionable price to dine. To the chagrin of my partner, who had to assist in piecing things together from the production side of the project. The juice didn't seem worth the squeeze, until Paris got us a reservation in early June.
I've never fine-dined before; the extent to which I was even educated on the culture of doing so was watching Pretty Woman every so often and joking with my mom that I would never have to learn which fork or spoon to use either, since it wasn't likely I'd ever have such an experience. In retrospect, there's many such cases where I've innocently assumed I wouldn't have grand, exciting stories like this to tell. Grand to me, anyhow.
The pop-up was hosted at the 1920s Paramour Estate in Silver Lake. We ubered down the road, up the hill, where the views of Hollywood made us fall in love with the allure of Los Angeles all over again. The host guided us to the pool, poured us a sparkling pink tea, and instructed us to follow the pinecones to the kitchen, which had previously functioned a greenhouse.
Over the course of nearly five hours, we dined on 16 courses, and seven pours of wine. My naivety on Michelin restaurants makes me an unreliable narrator, but I think just about anyone who had only previously joked about eating at one of these establishments would find themselves in awe, regardless of the quality of the dish, to which many have critiqued. Someone on Reddit described it as Noma trying to interpret LA; I thought of Noma's project as more of the end of a good loaf of bread, a heel of Copenhagen, if you will.
Seafood forward, and drawing from the elements of Southern California, we sunk our teeth into pink pepper Dungeness crab that melted on the tongue. Daylilies, lobster broth, fresh prawn with matcha (brought to our table minutes before being cooked, yikes), and my favorite: sea urchin custard paired with green caviar and braised acorns. I took one bite and immediately knew Paris' stomach would be unable to handle it, and the look on his face proved this to be true. What a fun little intimate thing, to know your partner's palate so well you know something about them before they even do. He gave me the rest of his urchin and I licked my spoon clean.
I liked the wines they poured, regardless of the public opinion. Again, my naivety. I'd watched Sideways though, so I felt I could pretend what was good wine and what was not. What was most thrilling was the story behind each bottle. The first was crafted by a woman who called herself Lady of the Sunshine. Her pour was sweet, bright, like she'd bottled the joy of the sun itself. The second, from a serious man, with a serious palate; married to Lady of the Sunshine. Both with such different perspectives on their shared craft, each with their own vineyards, each leaving one another's process unmeddled with.
That's special, I thought. To have a partnership like that, full of respect and reverence for the same kind of art. Separate in terms of their trades, but married in every other way. Deeply understanding of the things that make them distinct from one another, and wise enough to know that keeping those things distant was not an infraction on their marriage, but perhaps the reason it was so special. I sipped each pour separately, and then married both on my tongue, one after another, still capable of discerning who and which each one was.
In the bathrooms, I took more note of the mauve paint they used rather than the mirror-tiled walls and ceilings. The grout was uneven, and I could see a thumbprint in the medium near the doorframe. Meticulously engineered authenticity. When I imagine my dream home, it has the same humanness to it, the same ability to procure awe from outsiders.
Back at the table, we continued with cactus candied with mezcal and ants, Californian botanicals, seaweed and clam, tuna neck, and tuna eye. One of the bottles of wine came from a man who lived in San Luis Obispo, and every room in his house was shaped like an octagon. His wife is apparently a witch, and pregnant. How could I not adore this?
Paris and I scooped steamed black rice out of a small wooden bowl, agreeing, we needed this. A simple grain to balance out our indulgence of the west coast. Our last few dishes included mushrooms with green plums, and grilled artichokes with kelp mole and fresh corn tortillas. He rolled his tortilla up into a little tube before smearing it into the brown sauce, a small motion that reminded me of my childhood dinners, sat across from my grandmother who loved the chocolatey, peanut-buttery sauce.
For dessert we ate a mini cactus ice cream flavored with lemongrass, macadamia milk and pistachio custard served in a sunflower with a side of cherries, and a Silver Lake fortune cookie: some fruit leather shaped into a wonton, filled with mildly sweet chocolate mousse and candied mealworms. Inside, tucked my fortune: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." I let the words settle in my mind as the cocoa settled on my lips.
As the dining room began to clear, the staff brought us one last dessert as a celebration for my birthday: a chocolate Mexican torte, paired with an after-dinner coffee. We enjoyed our sweets and laughed, amazed and tired and full. The staff gave us a closer peek at the greenhouse kitchen, gifted us Noma coffee table books, and thanked Paris for all the work he'd done helping with the project. I soaked in the beauty of the property once more before we went to the gift shop down the road.
Noma Projects' slogan is try new things. That we did.
Because we are gluttonous little devils, we got matchas on our walk back to my apartment, before collapsing in my bed, sweaty and gross and stuffed and in love. Talking until nearly midnight about how special it all was; the food, the story, each other.
I thought about the first breakfast we had together: I made us blueberry pancakes and iced coffees, and I could recall that somehow, some way, it felt just as special. Eating alongside each other, not just as a passive act of the day-to-day, or even as a means of survival, but as a quiet, celebratory way of enjoying life with each other.
Sincerely,
Elena
Elena