No one read this 5 years ago

A Substack from the pandemic featuring my Nana's brisket recipe.

Five years ago, in the middle of a global pandemic, with little paid work, no baby, lots of time to cook and a new direct-to-email newsletter platform at my fingertips, I started Eat Your Feelings. It was a way for me to rant to friends and try new recipes in my bubble, satisfy my Millennial urge to post GIFs and mock politics, and mostly feel productive in a time of uncertainty. Reading back on this post that maybe 10 people read when I first sent it out, the tangible details of life have changed: more freedom to leave the house, less time to write, a grandma passed, a baby born, a better editor (thank you husband) and a bigger audience (thank you subscribers!).

But while the details have shifted over the last 5 years, the feelings has persisted. We still have so much rage that continues to build, with seemingly no real change toward the better, and no where to put it. And while I think that my advice from years ago is a bit amateur (hindsight 2020), the core value is the same: in times of rage and pain and unknowing, put down your phone, turn off the noise, and cook Nana’s brisket.

Please enjoy a post from December of 2020 that no one read and submit your own rage here so we can cook it into something delicious, together.

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Hello there self-loathing foodie friends,

Is it just me? Or is everyone feeling…on edge? Raging with feelings? Ready to attack, cry, scream, fuck, cry, attack, repeat? Maybe it’s the moon, or maybe it’s the hormones that Bill Gates has injected into our socially isolated turkeys, but either way, something is off. And it’s got us going off.

I’ve been feeling the rage creep up around us for a while now, but it’s beginning to bubble over whether it’s a group of anti-maskers trying to burn a pile of masks in Washington Square Park and accidentally creating a big smoking fireball of plastic they need a mask to deal with, or my ex-bosses internet bullying me months after I resigned from their company, proving themselves to be just as toxic, vindictive, and unprofessional as I had called them out for being.

It’s not unexpected. It’s not unfounded (though perhaps misdirected). It’s just all very dramatic.

But I get it: the recent world has forced us all to our edge. We are forced to be unemployed or work in unsafe conditions, forced to stay at home or forced to wear something we may not want to wear, forced to watch as others blatantly disregard the health of our friends and family, face consequences for our past actions, look at our privilege, admit we are wrong, try and fail and try and still fail. We are all teenagers forced to do our homework and stay inside on a nice day, screaming at our parents or friends or whoever will listen: The fucking world is fucking unfair.

And for the first time in history (besides that one fight I had with my mom in 2004), the teens are right: the world is unfair.

This year has been a unique fireball of trash kicked in the face of every single person, and we are all suffering. We are all raging and on our own personal edge, and it’s not as exhilarating or sensual as Sting promised it would be. So.. let’s let each other feel the feelings, but also give each other a damn break. And by break I mean, take out your rage on food instead of your partners, friends, family, or ex-business associates.

Hate your parents for making you do Zoom school? Channel Meryl at the Oscars, rise above the painful pomp and circumstance of the event, and think how you are perfecting your craft for future mass deception. Then order a pizza on Dad’s credit card.

Want to troll your past employee on their newsletter’s anonymous submission board? Instead, bake a cake in their image and throw it into the East River!

Pissed you have to wear a mask? Fill it with orange Tic-Tacs and indulge in a secret snack while (safely) cursing out the liberal snowflakes!

See something that ain’t right in your workplace or society? Discuss extensively with friends, co-workers and confidants, do your research, build your case, think it over for the time it takes to make Nana’s brisket. And if it feels right, take a stand. If your gut tells you it is truly the right thing to do, it probably is. Even if someone might be drowning a cake with your picture on it afterward.

And so, this week, I’m answering my own question with my own grandma’s recipe for the dish that has quelled my bickering Jewish family for generations: Nana’s Special Rage Brisket.

Nana, 94, telling me last week “I cooked from feeling. It always tasted good.”

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“What do I eat in rage?”

Not only does this recipe call for a lot of chopping, the perfect rage activity for the angry teen inside us all, but this brisket also takes time. Lots, and lots, of stewing time.

So no matter what ignited your anger, take this crucial time to really stew over your emotions. As the onions get brown and fragrant and translucently silky, ask yourself “who wronged me and why?” As the carrots turn sweet and buttery enough to be cut with a spoon, ask yourself “why am I mad?” And finally, as the giant hunk of roast starts to moisten and absorb the warm, comforting flavors of a no-bullshit Nana, eventually separating effortlessly into succulent morsels of tender beef, ask yourself “who really cares?”

Hopefully, by the time you sit down to eat your beautiful steaming brisket, whatever your rage was when you started cooking will seem silly, be mostly forgotten, or at least, for the moment, not feel worthy of the drama calories.

Nana’s Special Rage Brisket

2.5 to 3 lbs brisket of beef (1st cut is best if possible) Trim fat off if any.

4 Big onions, sliced thin

2 Carrots

2 Potatoes

A little oil in a big roasting pan, medium-low heat, sauté onions and add garlic powder & paprika until onions are soft.

Remove onions, add brisket and a little more oil. Add a lot of garlic powder and some more paprika. Medium heat, brown 5 minutes then flip beef, brown 5 minutes on that side.

Put onions BELOW the beef, on the bottom of the pot.

Cover pot, medium heat until almost boiling, then low heat. Simmer on low for 2 hours, turning every 20 minutes. You can also do it in a slow cooker on low overnight, but if you do add some beef stock to keep it moist.

Quarter potatoes and carrots, add half-hour before the end.

Serve. But keep some for later. It’s even better the next day.

Nana on her wedding day thinking about meat.