The circus

My mother used to bound into the kitchen, arms flapping, questions blurting, needlessly consuming space, and all the soothing traffic patterns of measured ingredients and prep timelines would snarl into what felt like a tumor of disarray. My breath would disappear, pearls of sweat would form on my brow, and a rage far larger than any crime my well-meaning, non-cooking mom deserved would blind me.

It is a turn of sadistic wizardry that I wound up spending my life cooking for thousands of bounding, flapping, inquisitive non-cooks.

But I don’t want to write about cooking right now. I want to write about confidence. Because the chaos my mother created by walking into whatever little cooking project I had set up for myself (this is probably me as a 10-year-old baking brownies from a box) was formed by my insecurity. I could be derailed because I hadn’t set proper tracks down.

Decades later, it’s close to impossible for a client to impede my achievements. They surprise me all the time, but they can’t thwart my progress. Clients often remark that my cool-headedness is the reason they hire me time and time again. My steadiness is a performance because inside I’m a bundle of nerves, but it’s a show I know how to give after years of practice.

I suffer from devastating stage fright. This terror is convincing enough to make me self-sabotage an entire acting career in my 20s. I needed to find a way to get good at something, and so I cooked, which has always been a thing I could kinda do. And while I know I am always getting better at my job, I haven’t given credit to how much my doggedness in the kitchen has informed the rest of my life.

My parents are performers who, if they suffer from stage fright, manage to cloak it with talent and charm. My dad is an author, and in February, in a theater in Connecticut, my mom and dad read some of his personal essays, and it was fantastic. My brother Max and his wife Megan were not able to come and asked if my parents would fly to Portland to perform the same kind of event. They would call it The Tucker Family Circus, and Max and Megan would perform some songs between the stories. They eagerly said yes, and then asked if I would read a few personal essays of my own. I was petrified, but said yes, of course.

And you know what? I was ready. Somehow, in the decades I’ve been cooking and writing, my destructive insecurities have quieted. My quavering voice and shaky hands were a thing of the past. I could stand by my work AND find the space in my often-overloaded ego to witness my family’s brilliance. It was the perfect night.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on our “sold”out event.

.

For those who were not able to come, here is one of the stories I read that night. I wrote it back in 2016, and it’s been updated a bit.

The Plaza

February 2009.

In those days, the small bedroom in my apartment on West 123^rd Street functioned as many rooms: sleeping room, dining room, entertainment room, storage room, and office. Sitting on my bed, sandwich on the bedside table, notebook on my lap, and a pen in hand, I picked up my phone and dialed.

“Hello?” The voice that answered my call was faint.

“Hello, is this Sharon? This is Alison Tucker. I’m a friend of Cynthia’s.”

Sharon Gans was a friend of my mom’s masseuse, Cynthia, whom I had only met once at my parents’ apartment as she blew out a scented candle and folded her padded table. I guess she and my mom had been talking about the struggle of my work search, and the masseuse thought I might be the perfect fit for her friend, Sharon, who was a former actress who ran a theater group she had started with her husband, who had recently died.

I continued into the phone. “Cynthia, the masseuse? She told me to call? I’m the chef. She said you might be looking for someone to hel..”

“Oh yessssss, Cynthia,” the woman said slowly. “She’s such a dear to connect us. She said you might be able to help me, but I forgot all about you. I can’t keep anything in order anymore. I don’t know if she told you, but I’ve suffered a terrible loss and haven’t been able to eat properly since my husband passed away. I’ve put on some weight, and I hate the way I feel.” I pictured a round, elderly widow, fond of Renaissance artwork and teapot collections.

“Yes, ma’am. I heard. I’m so sorry for your loss. I really think I might be able to help.” We continued talking for a while about food options, logistics, and cost. Excited to “truly begin the process of healing” with my cooking, she suggested I start the very next day.

I was over the moon. It had been a long, arduous search for work in the year since I’d moved back to New York. I was running out of money and belief in myself. But that all flipped during this conversation. She needed me, and I knew I could help.

I got the job. I got the job. Everything’s going to be ok.

I walked down the long hallway of my railroad flat into my living room, making sure my socks didn’t catch on the splintery wooden floor as they often did. My large bay window faced north, overlooking the projects-turned-luxury-condos, the renovated tenements behind them, and the George Washington Bridge twinkling in the distance. I took a deep inhale, feeling a lengthening in my spine. Had I grown an inch in the past hour? It felt like it.

I called my best friend, Blaine.

He answered quickly. “Hey, what’s up? Did you talk to that lady?”

“I did! She sounded terrible. Like really tired and depressed. I think this could be a real leaping off point for me.”

“That’s great!” he said.

“She wants me to cook for her twice a week, and Blaine, I’ll be cooking in THE PLAZA!”

Sharon Gans lived on the residential side of The Plaza. As a kid growing up in New York, the Plaza was more than the massive, iconic luxury hotel on Central Park South; it was the home of the mischievous and precocious Eloise. Eloise was a semi-autobiographical book by Kay Thompson about a little girl who lived in The Plaza with a tiny chihuahua, a turtle, and a nanny. Though I lived in an apartment on 89^th street, had an insanely obnoxious poodle, and no turtle or nanny, I saw myself in Eloise. We were both smart, curious, and unfettered in our respective worlds. When I was younger, I had been in the hotel lobby of The Plaza, but never on the residential side, which has a whole different entrance and specific floors that hotel guests can’t access. I felt a pixieish thrill at the thought of cooking there.

“What’s her full name?” Blaine asked, and I told him.

I rambled on, “She’s exactly the kind of client I need right now. I can focus my attention on helping her regain strength and feel more like herself. Then she might tell other people in The Plaza, or her students, or her friends, and before you know it, I’ll be cooking all over town.”

Blaine made a sound. A wary “Hrm.”

“What, Blaine?” I said sharply. Blaine can be a bit of a pessimist when good things are happening. I didn’t want his attitude to ruin my evening.

He said, “Hundreds of former victims, or 'students,' of Alex Horn and Sharon Gans gave accounts of families being destroyed, emotional abuse, slave labor, and brainwashing. As of late October 2007, Sharon Gans was still believed to be running the cult in New York City.”

Now, Blaine is brilliant. He’s quick-witted and twisted and likes to play games, but these words came out of the phone too quickly for him to have just made them up.

“Stop, Blaine, that’s not funny.” I was really confused.

“What? I just googled her name!” he said. He had found a website devoted to the work she had done with her husband and their theater-group-turned-cult called The Theater Of All Possibilities.

“STOP, Blaine! I can’t deal with this right now. I am going to cook for this woman tomorrow, and I need to be focused and calm!” I hung up abruptly.

Could what he said be true? A cult leader? With victims?? Brainwashing!?! Luckily, our phones weren’t as smart in those days, so I couldn’t Google her right then and there. I made the choice not to turn on my desktop computer.

‘Impossible,’ I thought later as I crawled into bed, trying to recapture my innocent victory from mere hours before. ‘She sounded so sweet.’

I woke before my alarm the next morning. Her first week’s menu was based around The South Beach Diet, rich in proteins and vegetables, no carbs, sugars, or starches. I stood in my kitchen that morning, staring into cabinets and drawers, coffee in hand. What would I need to bring with me to cook in this woman’s apartment? She had mentioned she had a few basic pots and pans, salt and pepper, but none of the exotic spices or oils I would need.

“Ooh! Smoked paprika for sure. And Garam Masala. And I’ll need the white pepper and the avocado oil.”

Dexter, my dog, blinked at me from the hall, framed by the cockeyed doorway as I talked to myself. My kitchen was styleless. The paint was chipped, the wood-paneled cabinets were hung unevenly, and the sink was so cheap that the handle broke off the first week I lived there. But it was a nice-sized room with plenty of counter space and a gas oven that could comfortably house a large roasting pan. After cooking in some of the most astronomically large and well-amended kitchens in Los Angeles, you’d think I would become snobby, but I liked this space. It was mine to do with what I wanted.

Into my insulated shopping bag, I wedged my spices and oils next to my favorite saute pan, my sheathed knife, and my chef coat. I hopped on the bus downtown to start my grocery shopping. I carefully inspected each bouquet of broccoli, every soft curve of a plum tomato, each knuckle of ginger before placing the winners in my basket. Only the finest fish and poultry for this new client! I folded the receipts into a zippered pocket in my wallet, which would be tallied up at the end of my cooking session and added to my hourly fee.

When I arrived at The Plaza, it was as if 30 years had disappeared from my body. A large guard tipped his hat as he opened the door to the residential entrance. I skipped through it, though my groceries felt like a bag of bowling balls.

“I’m here to cook for Sharon Gans,” I told the front desk. “And I’ll be back in a few days to cook for her again!” as if they would hand me the keys to The Plaza right then and there.

They responded with a numb sort of “good for you, miss,” but I was too zippy to hear anything other than “Hooray for Alison!”

I chose the middle elevator, which I shared with a slim brunette woman with a wide-brimmed hat and an older man in a tailored suit. They smelled floral and musky, like I imagined Paris and wealthy grandfathers do.

“Have a nice day,” I called to them when they got off on the third floor. They hummed back with a slight over-the-shoulder wave.

I took a deep breath when the elevator doors opened on her floor. This was it. A momentary flash of Blaine’s words popped into my head, but walking through the fancy halls of Eloise’s Plaza helped me forget quickly. Was this the first day of the rest of my life?

I took my folded chef coat from my bag and gave it a hard snap to air it out. One sleeve at a time. Knot buttons. Now a mint.

Knock, knock.

Nothing.

Knock, knock.

The giant wooden door opened to reveal a tall woman, maybe 70 years old, in an indigo caftan and dark oval sunglasses. Her wild orange hair was like a straw explosion, and a long menthol cigarette dangled from her mouth. She silently motioned for me to come inside. I peeked behind her, wondering where the frail, old, grieving widow was, but we were alone.

Her furniture was ornate and antique, with half-full ashtrays on every table. The windows were hung with floor-to-ceiling mahogany damask curtains. Thin columns of daylight leaked like secrets between the drapes and a cloud of minty cigarette smoke hung mid-air. It was like attending a screening of “Rosemary’s Baby” in a smoldering storage unit.

In hindsight, I see how I anesthetized I had made my ability to read a room from my need to succeed as a chef and caretaker. I felt like I was watching a horror movie, not like I was in one.

She kept her sunglasses on as she motioned for me to sit on the couch across from the tapestried chair she sank into.

“I see you’ve brought food with you.” She sounded villainous and accusatory.

I nodded, perplexed by this comment. Of course, I brought food with me. We had spoken about this. I was there to cook the menu that she’d requested. What little of her face I could make out from behind her glasses was stuck in a frown. Blaine’s words crept into my head again. ‘Cult leader. Brainwasher.’

“So, you’re going to cook for me today. That’s good. I would also like for you to teach me how to cook when I start to feel better.” And she lit another Pall Mall.

“Uh huh,” I mumbled, staring at the dark curtains obstructing one of the most prized panoramas in all of New York: the north-facing view of Central Park from a top floor on 59^th Street.

I could feel my spirit oozing away. If Blaine hadn’t read those words to me, would I think this room was dark for mourning? I’m sure I would have been even further drawn into her story. I wasn’t aware at that point that her husband had actually died 2 years earlier.

“So, now let’s see that kitchen!” I whooped with much more energy than was appropriate for this opaque room.

The kitchen was itty bitty and lit with fluorescent tubes that burned my eyes as soon as they came on. The room was a third the size of my kitchen at home. I know that many of the apartments in buildings like this were made when developers split single-level residences into multiple units. The small kitchens in each apartment were formerly butler’s pantries. Hers had plain white wooden cabinets and a small oven that wouldn’t have accommodated any of my roasting pans.

I started to unpack the groceries and my cooking tools onto the small counter as she stared sourly from the doorway. I attempted a smile, thanked her, and told her I would be about 3 hours.

“THREE hours! I can’t imagine what you’re going to do in all that time!!!”

‘Cook. I’m going to cook your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, asshole’ is what I didn’t say.

I needed to start chopping, searing, and braising. I needed to reconnect to the food, to who I am at my core, because nothing was feeling right anymore. I cooked for three hours and left her fridge full of food. Unable to find her in the next room and unwilling to search harder I left her bill on the kitchen counter with a “Thank you!” and a smiley face. This was out of character for me, but I was desperate to find her soft side.

When I got home, I could have fallen into bed immediately, but instead I sat down at my computer. “Sharon Gans,” I googled. Website after website spewed information about the cult she ran and the 8.5 million-dollar Plaza apartment that was purchased for her by one of her “students.” There had been abuse. There had been manipulations. There had been a lot of money conned. I stared at the wall. I needed this job. I needed it so badly. And these websites were written by bitter former students of hers, not journalists or documentarians. I closed the websites and cleared my computer’s cache. And then turned it off. And then unplugged it. You can’t be too careful.

Four days later, her apartment door opened slowly to reveal the same impenetrable sunglasses, wild red hair, and a different dark schmatta. She announced to me that there had been a major problem: she could not find the food I had cooked.

“What?!?”

Her fridge had been almost empty, and I had just stacked one Tupperware container on top of another. I couldn’t imagine that I’d hidden them behind other things. There were no other things! We went into the kitchen together, and I tugged the refrigerator door open. There they were, towers of the food I had worked so hard to perfect the previous week.

“This is it. This is the food I cooked. See? Here it is! It’s right here!” Pointing.

She said that friends were helping her through these troubled times, and I really should make it easier on them.

“But it’s right here, see? Here. This is it!”

“Anyway,” she held up her hand, “please get started. And next week, I’m going to need you to pick something up for me. Will you please grab four tall low-fat café lattes from Starbucks with eight packets of sugar on the side. Thank you.” And out she walked.

Five days later, I showed up with her four Starbucks.

There is a very specific humiliation involved in buying coffee for someone you dislike, especially when you are also carrying all their groceries. I did it, though. It was my job. Or kind of my job, anyway. It was job-adjacent. I wasn’t technically being paid for this part. And no, I’ve never picked up Starbucks for any other client. Oh wow, it’s not my job at all. Fuck.

Sharon had found the food in the fridge by the second week, but thought most of it was tasteless and told me so, point blank. She also said that she felt hungry after every meal, which I suggested was a side effect of being on a diet, but she poo-pooed that and told me to get to work. I started to cook and noticed that the garbage can was full of cigarette butts, Starbucks cups, and empty mint chip ice cream pints. Pints-- with an s.

There was one thing I made that she did like: the egg muffins- they were South Beach’s take on a mini quiche-- but with no floury crust or doughy insides. They were all protein and veg and yummy, diet or no. I thought, ‘Ok, cool, I’ll make them every time.’

The next week, she opened her door sunglasses-free. It was the first time I saw her eyes, though I didn’t look too deeply. Progress, I thought. She leaped for the Starbucks cups like a puppy for a treat and then disappeared into another dark room.

In the kitchen, I opened the fridge to find most of the food still there from the last time. Sharon suddenly appeared in the doorway and said that one of her students had brought her food, and she had just eaten that. She said I should pack the rest up for the homeless. I wondered, would the homeless population of 59^th and 5^th Avenue appreciate the subtlety of the South Beach Diet?

And, for some reason, on that afternoon, mostly because there were still 5 of them in the fridge, I did not make new egg muffins. It felt ridiculous to make new ones when the old ones were still good.

Two days later, I was in the middle of prep for a big cocktail party for awesome new clients when Sharon called. “Where were the egg muffins? How could I have not made them? This is an outrage! What the hell was I thinking?”

I don’t like to be screamed at, especially when I am wrong, but I had to give myself credit… I had subconsciously figured out an exit plan.

I arrived at her apartment later that day, and the glasses were back on.

“I think I should find you another chef.”

“I think it would be best,” she responded breathily, as though she were on her deathbed and I had violated her beyond repair.

Every day I worked for her, I arrived full of energy and left almost unable to walk. In 3 short hours, I would be drained. She was a powerful person.

Could she have been a cult leader? Could she have hoodwinked thousands of people out of their common sense and cash? I don’t know, but I do know she could devastate my vital force through sunglasses three dark rooms away.

That day, though-- that day I grew stronger with every step I took away from her. Other than believing her initial portrayal of a sickly woman in need, I had not fallen prey to her cons. I made it out alive paid in full.

Mini Egg Muffin

Mini Egg Muffins with Turkey Bacon, Spinach, Tomatoes, and Basil

Makes 12 mini muffins or 9 regular muffins

Ingredients

• 2 pieces turkey bacon

• 1 teaspoon of olive oil

• 1/4 red onion, chopped

• 1/2 cup baby tomatoes, cut in half

• 1 cup of baby spinach

• 1/2 cup of basil, cut into chiffonade

• 6 eggs or 1 1/2 cup egg substitute

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly spray a mini muffin tin (or regular muffin tin) with cooking spray.

2. Heat a small pan on a medium flame and sear the turkey bacon for about a minute each side. Transfer to a cutting board but keep the heat on the pan.

3. Add the oil into the warm pan and then the onions. Season with salt and saute until the onions become soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes into the pan and turn the heat up to medium hot. Add the spinach, which will release water and wilt down quickly and cook on medium flame until the liquid has evaporated about another minute. Toss into a bowl.

4. Chop the turkey bacon into small cubes and toss that into the bowl with the vegetables.

5. Break and whip the eggs in a separate bowl and then add to the veg/ turkey bacon mix. Season mixture with salt and pepper. Stir in the basil chiffonade.

6. Using a small cookie scoop, transfer the egg mixture into the mini muffin cups a little more than 3/4 full.

7. Bake for 15 minutes for minis, 20 minutes for full-size muffins.

8. Let cool. Enjoy!

Egg Muffins with Caramelized Onions, Spinach, Tomatoes, Zucchini, Basil and Goat Cheese

Makes about 9 full-size muffins

Ingredients

• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped

• 1 teaspoon olive oil

• 1 cup of washed baby spinach leaves

• 1/2 tomato, seeded and chopped into 1/4 inch pieces

• 1/2 cup chopped zucchini

• 5 basil leaves, chiffonaded

• 1/2 cup goat cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a mini muffin tin (or regular muffin tin) with cooking spray.

2. Heat oil in a small saute pan and add the chopped onions. Season with salt and saute until the onions become soft and translucent. Add the spinach, which will release water and wilt down quickly and cook on medium flame until the liquid has evaporated, about another minute. Add the tomatoes into the pan and turn the heat up to medium hot. Add the zucchini and then the basil. Let cool.

3. Break and whip the eggs in a separate bowl and then add to the vegetable mix. Season mixture with salt and pepper.

4. Using a small cookie scoop, transfer the egg mixture into the mini muffin cups a little more than 3/4 full.

5. Add the crumbled goat cheese into each muffin tin, about a tablespoon or more per tin.

6. Bake for 20 minutes for full-size muffins.

7. Let cool. Enjoy!