Simmer Down

for a chef. On those and other grounds, I’d also become the not-very-proud owner of a handheld stick blender, a two-year subscription to Real Simple, a bundt pan, and a set of see-through panties and bustier that I’d convinced myself were presents for Josh, since he’d get to see me in them. After realizing that the gift of me was disgustingly narcissistic, I had managed to buy something actually for Josh: a really expensive knife from his favorite store, Kitchen Arts. And since most of Josh’s clothing consisted of chef clothes and of logo T-shirts given to him by beer and liquor distributors, I’d bought him a couple of plain pullover shirts that bore no reference to alcohol. As for his presents to me, I’d spent most of December fearing that Josh would give me something awful and corny, like a charm bracelet with miniature pans and spoons hanging from it. But Josh, knowing me as well as he did, got me a monstrous supply of paint rollers, masking tape, trays, and paintbrushes, and a gift certificate to Home Depot, where I could buy all the house paint I’d ever need. Now, this might not sound like a romantic present, but Josh knew that about every three months I repainted my apartment and was too goddamn lazy to wash the brushes or rollers and consequently left them, soaked in paint, to dry out and eventually end up in the trash. I still had an unsightly, crooked stripe painted across one wall of my bedroom, a wall that desperately needed help. Josh was a dream.
    He’d also given me one of the Naked Chef cookbooks, a selflessly generous gift because he thought that most celebrity chefs stank. On Josh’s accepted list were Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Hammersley, and Charlie Trotter. Oddly enough, he’d watch entire episodes of Iron Chef with me, but I could wear my Rachael Ray Yum-O T-shirt only in his absence. If he caught me indulging my addiction to the Food Network, his typical comment was, “What are you doing watching that bozo?” As though I were cheating on him by admiring another chef! But if you ask me, the reason he got all pissy about celebrity chefs was jealousy. His profession was highly competitive and underpaid. If Simmer succeeded, he could remain the executive chef there, have good reviews written about him, and maybe earn enough money to pay the bills. He might eventually open his own restaurant and hope that it survived long enough to make even a small profit, but as the owner, he’d have to deal primarily with the business aspects of the restaurant and would be able to do very little cooking, which was his true passion. If he got super lucky, someone famous might eat at his restaurant and give him his own show or create a line of Josh Driscoll cookware. Highly unlikely.
    Impatient for Josh to wake up, I worked on Naomi’s list, which was coming along:

3.Attempting to put duvet cover on duvet without sweating to death.

4. Having shower curtains that refuse to stay on stupid shower curtain hooks and fall off while you are trying to take sexy shower with chef boyfriend.

5. Being given annoying hermit crab pet named Ken as gift from nephew.

    I glanced up from papers to stare at my worst present, Ken, who was hanging from the top of his cage as if trying to impress me and make me like him. My sister, Heather, was trying to teach her three-year-old son, Walker, about the “experience of giving” and had foolishly let him pick out presents for Christmas. Walker was in the stage of choosing gifts that he himself would like to be given, and I was pretty pissed at Heather for supporting his inability to take the perspective of another. Yet, who was I to talk? Looking around the room at the mass of gifts I’d purchased for others and kept for myself, I suspected Walker and I shared some sort of genetic family flaw and were therefore blameless. Anyway, I was now stuck caring for a damn hermit crab, one that Walker had already named, for Christ’s sake. Still, I felt an obligation to keep Ken alive and not flush him down the toilet. I promised myself that I’d look up crab care on the Internet.
    I grabbed the phone to call my best friend, Adrianna. Ade was an independent hairstylist who was building up a loyal and wealthy clientele. She’d just started representing a makeup line as well, and she was forever giving me awesome product samples. My social work school volunteer day was coming up, a day when students were required to help out at social service