Okay Shanna Compton--there's a lot of food in this one.

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A Brief History of the Last Twenty Years


12 years old: The prettiest girl in class. Dumped behind the woodpile across the street from mi abuela’s house. Mi abuelo had died three weeks earlier. There were beans and tortillas and smoke from a wood stove. After this, no more holding hands, no more sitting at the same cafeteria table. To keep me company: Marcella Hazan.

14 years old: 16 year old alcoholic. Visitor. Someone’s cousin. Made out to Whitesnake. Sat on the playground slide. Then August ended.

15 years old: A precocious 14 year old. Blond. Big. Down by the river. Martin Yan and me.

16 years old: I didn’t dump anyone this year. No one dumped me. I listened to The Cure a lot. It was winter the whole year through. Recommended reading: The Frugal Gourmet.

17 years old: Fucked on my parents’ bed. Summer fling. Almost got beat up by an older brother. She’s wet and she lives in Seattle. Had my eye on someone else. She didn’t have it on me.

18 years old: Beginning of a three-year crush, sloppily handled. Would result in the birth of a son of one of my closest friends.

19-20 years old: Silence. A lot street food, resulting in twenty pound weight gain. Running again.

21 years old: The Older Woman. Hourglass. Southern Accent. Fellatio and huge Afghan feasts. Vodka. Everything else recedes.

22 years old: First Love. Real love. Dumped on Christmas Eve. No explanations given. Broke into her house months later and found a huge dildo in the freezer. Why was I looking in the freezer? I was hungry.

22 years old: Former best friend spilled popcorn on the floor of my new apartment. I threw a tantrum. She left and got married, had a child. Got divorced. We still don’t talk.

23-25 years old: Hits and misses. Upstairs Girl moved to Springfield. Moved to California. Came back. Kissed me and felt guilty. A lot of jug wine. A lot of menthol cigarettes. I made out with her sister. The vegetarian years. My culinary mistress: Julie Sahni.

26 years old: Random encounters. Superman Girl. Stripper girl. On occasion, future best friend girl. 18 year old highschool kid, a hippie, catches me masturbating. Wants to stay and watch. Kicked him out. He would return the following year to live in my apartment. Drunken sex with his girlfriend one night. Kicked them both out soon after. Food pal: Rick Bayless.

26 years old: after months of adult braid-pulling, one night spent with a redhead becomes complicated. She takes me to breakfast. She gets fired from her job. She thinks I’m her boyfriend. Male commitment phobia makes a guest appearance. She leaves to make out with local rock stars, some of whom look astonishingly like cartoon goats.

26 years old: Upstairs Girl returns in a pickup truck, her boyfriend’s. Two nights together. Photographs. We’re drinking in all the photographs. She leaves. Spiced rum. No food. She is also a redhead.

26 years old: My best friend Erik and I part ways. He moves in with popcorn girl, recently divorced. I felt as if a family member had died. He was more important to me than all the girls. When we talk now, it’s like Old Army Pals Talk. Also a redhead.

27 years old: Asked out the neighbor on Valentine’s day. Rejected. Flirted with a student from Texas. Didn’t sleep with Canadian dancers, though someone else did. Subscribe to Saveur Magazine. Visited M's classroom. Became enchanted with her stomach, her kindness, her grace.

28 years old: She goes on vacation without me. The 13 month relationship dissolves more or less amicably. I always felt I could have tried harder. A real beauty, but hell to coexist with. Chinese food at the Maple Garden. A recipe for Ecuadorian potato-cheese cakes.

29 years old: Celibacy and grad school kick in. New pants size. Legs of lamb. Year of Breakfasts and Lunches with Ezra.

30 years old: Upstairs girl returns. One chaste night. A lot of wine. She gets married a few months later. Or that’s what her last email said.

31 years old: The Year of Two Samanthas. Big redhead: eats chicken in bed and wears “fuck me” boots. We share a lot of music. Small hippie: eats, well, almost nothing. Geographic differences and annoying dog make this one difficult to sustain. Discover asparagus.

32 years old: Mostly celibate. But then not. Not dumped yet. Not started yet. This is where the scare quotes introduce themselves and begin to be employed liberally.