Apron Anxiety: My Messy Affairs In and Out of the Kitchen

Apron Anxiety: My Messy Affairs In and Out of the Kitchen

“Hot sex, looking good, scoring journalistic triumphs . . . nothing made Alyssa love herself enough until she learned to cook. There's a racy plot and a surprising moral in this intimate and delicious book.” --Gael Greene, creator of Insatiable-Critic.com and author of Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess Apron Anxiety is the hilarious and heartfelt memoir of quintessential city girl Alyssa Shelasky and her crazy, complicated love affair with...the kitchen.   Three months into a relationship with her TV-chef crush, celebrity journalist Alyssa Shelasky left her highly social life in New York City to live with him in D.C. But what followed was no fairy tale: Chef hours are tough on a relationship. Surrounded by foodies yet unable to make a cup of tea, she was displaced and discouraged. Motivated at first by self-preservation rather than culinary passion, Shelasky embarked on a journey to master the kitchen, and she created the blog Apron Anxiety (ApronAnxiety.com) to share her stories. This is a memoir (with recipes) about learning to cook, the ups and downs of love, and entering the world of food full throttle. Readers will delight in her infectious voice as she dishes on everything from the sexy chef scene to the unexpected inner calm of tying on an apron. “Hot sex, looking good, scoring journalistic triumphs . . . nothing made Alyssa love herself enough until she learned to cook. There's a racy plot and a surprising moral in this intimate and delicious book.” —GAEL GREENE, creator of Insatiable-Critic.com and author of Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess “I loved this book. It’s partly a cautionary tale about getting involved with young career-driven men and a love story about a woman and the city she loves and leaves and loves again. And finally, it’s about good friends, a loving family, and the importance and good fortune Alyssa has for having both. Oh, and there’s a great recipe for mac and cheese.” —JOHN DELUCIE, chef/proprietor The Lion, Crown restaurants, and author of The Hunger: A Memoir of an Accidental Chef   “Part memoir, part cookbook, Alyssa’s writing is honest, witty, and disarming—a compelling journey of a girl becoming her own woman. Though she experiences love and loss, she finds her sweetest days where she least expects it—within herself in the kitchen. With that, Alyssa encourages even the most kitchen phobic to turn on the oven.”  —DANYELLE FREEMAN, founder of RestaurantGirl.com and author of Try This: Traveling the Globe Without Leaving the Table “Shelasky's memoir is a zesty read about dating, family, and self-discovery.” –ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY "Amusing, compassionate story of love among the pots and pans." —KIRKUS REVIEWS “Shelasky’s energetic memoir looks at her experiences as celebrity journalist turned food blogger and the relationships that sparked her passion for cooking… Shelasky is candid about her misadventures and, in a charming touch, includes related recipes at the close of each chapter.” —BOOKLIST “Alyssa Shelasky’s unpretentious prose leaves us hungry for more.” – DAILY CANDY “Here’s your summer racy read with plenty of juicy gossip to keep a foodie’s interest.” –CHARLESTON POST & COURIER ALYSSA SHELASKY is the New York editor of Grub Street at New York magazine, as well as the creator of the blog Apron Anxiety (ApronAnxiety.com). She has written for numerous publications including People, Us Weekly, Hamptons Style, Gotham, Self, Blackbook, TV Guide, The New York Post, New Yor k magazine, CBS's Watch magazine, and Glamour magazine. 1. Raised by Drake’s Every morning of my life, my mother has eaten a packaged Devil Dog for breakfast. She dunks it into milky tea while skimming the New York Times, glancing at Good Morning America, and preparing for a day of real estate domination. Her “Devils” have been her mimosas, her morning stretch, her sun salutations, and her beloved first lick-of-the-lips for nearly sixty years. She brings them everywhere, from early morning meetings to trips around the world, stashed in leather briefcases, burlap bags, and woolly blazers. She buys them in bulk, hides them from the family (as if anyone would steal her dry, wannabe whoopie pies), and writes letters to the CEO of Drake’s when the taste or texture is “not quite right.” She is, after all, a full-blown Virgo. It’s an endearing, yet deranged, quirk of hers. Especially if you know my mother. She doesn’t drink alcohol, eat fast food, or engage in anything else that would piss off Michael Pollan. She religiously consumes at least five pieces of fruit, along with a small village of raw vegetables (all locally grown, of course), every single day. It’s not unusual to find her walking home from the farmers’ market blissfully biting into a glistening red pepper or a fat head of purple cabbage, the way one would a huge frosted cupcake. Lunch for her involves fresh eggs, nice cheese, crispy toast, or some peasantlike variation of such,