'I felt somewhere between parent and friend, roommate, and babysitter. Whatever it was felt nice'
Photo-Illustration: by the Cut; Photos courtesy of the subject; first photo by Keith Ferris. Before I met my husband, I was a defiant non-cook, leaving the grocery shopping and apron wearing to the rest of my family: my mom and dad, who prefer cooking at home to restaurantgoing for health and money and ambience reasons, and my brother, who spent his early 30s learning to cook David Chang’s bo ssäm recipe while I was lying on my couch and ordering Seamless.
So we started doing both. I think the first thing Quinn and I cooked together was nachos. Tortilla chips, covered in chopped onions and cheddar, thrown onto a pan and into a hot stove until the chips were crisp and gooey with melted cheese, the sharpness of the onion the exclamation point on the sentence.
Meanwhile, Quinn actually got a job at a restaurant. He started as a busboy, but when the pandemic struck, he moved to the kitchen and learned how to cook. He’d come home and we’d talk about whatever he was making: He created a smashburger that ended up on the restaurant’s menu with his name attached to it. He’d show me recipes and YouTube videos for things like birria tacos and cloud bread; we discussed the joys of chile crisp and rendered pork fat.
By December he’d made it to California, and he and I had worked out a scheme: He and a friend would drive back East in her van for the holidays so he could surprise his dad, and then, after Christmas, I’d fly him back to L.A., where he’d left his car in long-term parking.