Seasoned with time

Our exes may fade from memory, but their cooking tips live on

Out There by Clea Simon

It was Mark, during our brief fling, who got me in the habit of flossing every night. He insisted on it, and even made me buy unwaxed floss to replace the waxed, minted kind that had sat, unused and dusty, in my medicine cabinet for months. At the time, I took his interest as a sign of caring. Before long I was to learn that my gums meant no more to him than I did. But I've been flossing ever since.

And it was Bruce, as I remember, who taught me how to prepare eggplant, how to score and salt it and weigh it down over a mound of paper towels for at least an hour before cooking it. He took great care in showing me how deep the cuts should be and how long the wet veggie should drain. He even stocked my pantry with kosher salt so that I could grill eggplant on my own fire-escape hibachi, the way he did. Bruce left me for his intern, I think. At least that's what my friends reported. All I know for sure is that one night he called from his office to say he wasn't coming over as planned. He was never coming over again. At the time, I was brokenhearted. These days, I can barely remember what he looked like. His grilled eggplant, however, remains in my repertoire.

I could go on, recalling the boyfriend who really taught me about steak, or the one who finally enlightened me about the lubricating uses of pasta-cooking water. (I'm talking about cooking, mind you.) But maybe I don't have to. More and more, I'm learning, we all have such stories -- a collection of tricks, shopping tips, and habits that we've picked up in our romantic adventures. One colleague, for example, told me about what happened when she first found herself attracted to bike racers. She dated a long-distance rider for the better part of one spring, only to find that he preferred the discipline of the two-wheeler to the normalcy of a relationship. Her next mate didn't last quite as long before she derailed him, not wanting his inability to commit to leave her stranded in the gutter of love. Right now, she's not seeing anyone. But her adventures on the bike path of life have not been for nothing: because of her choice in men, she has a 50-mile-a-week habit and thigh muscles I would kill for.

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Even my own partner, cooking mate of my life, admitted to me that not that long ago he got a call from a woman with whom he used to live. I started to get jealous, but then he revealed that she had called to inquire about hamburger. She remembered that when they had shopped together he had always steered her away from the "extra lean," but she couldn't recall why -- or what he had recommended in its place. For her, the taste of his burgers had outlasted the years of separation.

Which all makes me wonder: what exactly makes up our relationships? When we're in the heat of their kitchens, all we feel is the steam of passion, all we taste is the sweetness of love. Later, it's the bitterness of jealousy and the final saltiness of tears when our unions melt like so much Crisco in the pan. No matter which side of the breakup we're on, we feel some pain -- or, at least, a guilty sort of relief -- when our couplehood ends. And we tell ourselves, swear to our friends, and remind our exes in innumerable late-night phone calls that we will not forget the special times. But no matter how hotly our ardor once burned, the memories of the lovemaking do eventually fade. That restaurant where you first looked at each other moon-eyed in the candlelight becomes a barbecue joint. The song that once put words and a tune to your unspeakable passion turns up on a Rhino collection of campy oldies. And you move on.

So was all for naught, all those tears and thigh-high stockings wasted? Should we all just give up and stay in, waiting until we are either too old to care or so desperate that instead of seeking our souls' partners we will answer one of those "marriage-minded gentlepersons" ads and immediately settle down? Is there any reason to continue dating and mating, breaking our hearts and our New Year's resolutions, if our liaisons are not only short-lived, but our memories of them fleeting as well?

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Some would say, Give up. Some would argue that, with romance such a short-lived thing, there is little point in going out there, in continuing to try for a permanent connection. Why make the effort and face the pain? But summing up my history, patchwork as it is, I have come to the opposite conclusion. After all, I'm happily partnered now. And just maybe that has been made possible by my checkered past. No, I'm not talking about how I supposedly learned patience and gratitude at the hands of various quick-talking cads and leather-clad jerks. I do not mean the usual lessons of love and forbearance that your well-meaning friends point to when you're sobbing in the pillow and they're hiding all the sharp objects. I mean, maybe we are who we are today because of all the silly little lessons we've picked up along the way, including the secret of slicing flank steak and the best way to get to I-93. Maybe it's these skills, learned from our exes, that helped turn us into the mysterious, multifaceted, and ultimately fascinating people we are today. Not that honeyboy's secret marinade will be the key to securing a hungry mate, exactly, but perhaps your wizardry with the toolbox will lend you a certain worldly allure -- one that you couldn't have assumed with your makeup kit 10 years ago.

And so no matter how much of a jerk that ex was, you needn't really worry. Five years from now, or even two, his voice won't make you tear up. And you will be able to make his mother's onion soup for your next love. Because if years in the trenches have taught us anything, it's this: it's not the heartache we remember, it's the recipes.

Clea Simon's first book, Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings, is now a Penguin paperback.