All or Nothing Read Online Free PDF

Katy and Jen around Cypress Head. At that point the only two things I was interested in were pot and cooking. But I couldn’t smoke (or cook, really) all day long. Jen filled the void. She also probably slowed down the snowball, as even my interest in pot waned a bit when I was around her. Somehow Jen was able to fill the hole—that relentless, empty feeling that followed me everywhere. I felt good around her. I liked myself in the relationship because I had integrity. There was no plotting or scheming. I never tried to manipulate her the way I did my parents and teachers.
    Before long Jen and I were going home together, usually to her house since both of her parents worked and were rarely home. At night I’d cut through the bushes to get to her street, which was just a few blocks away, and sneak in her window. Jen positioned her mattress close to the wall so I could hide in the space between the wall and the mattress if her parents ever walked in.
    For the next year and a half, Jen and I were inseparable. We spent hours making out and exploring each other’s bodies. We never spoke about it, but the next step was becoming abundantly clear.
    One Friday afternoon I walked into a drugstore and stole a box of condoms. My parents had split for the weekend, and Joee was gone. Jen and I started out in my bedroom, rolling around on my bed with our legs intertwined. Slowly, I moved my hand up her shirt, unbuttoned her bra, and started squeezing her breasts. We were both shaking with excitement. Somehow we ended up in the guest room, where I laid her down on the bed and slowly started to undress her. We had gone this far before, but this time it was different. With Pearl Jam’s “Indifference” blaring in the background, I lost my virginity.
    Just when my relationship with Jen was picking up, I had to contend with an entirely new experience—loss—when my Grandma Rosie lost a long battle with brain cancer. Of course my Nana Mae had already died, but I was so young when she passed away, and she was quite old. With Rosie, it was different. A wave of sadness like I’d never experienced before ran through our house. I can still remember the look of pure despair on my Grandpa Laz’s face. I’d loved Rosie too. I didn’t know how to process my emotions, so I found another place to stuff my grief.
    I poured myself into cooking even more, no longer just experimenting but actually creating. Some of these creations were spectacular failures, like the chicken I marinated in blackberries with Coca-Cola and garlic that was totally inedible. But the more I practiced the more I finally started to make things that tasted good. One weekend my buddy Fred and I took some soft challah bread my mom had sitting around and stuffed it with creamy peanut butter and jelly. Then we soaked the whole thing in eggs, cream, sugar, and the slightest hint of vanilla. We pan-fried it until the edges turned crispy but the inside stayed gooey and creamy. Picture a grilled cheese sandwich, but with warm peanut butter and jelly inside instead of cheese. It took a few attempts to get it exactly right, but when we did we had created the perfect stoner sandwich. Of course, this creation later became one of Recette’s signature brunch dishes, PB&J Pain Perdu.
    Before long it seemed like everyone in Parkland knew about the PB&J. My parents often went out for dinner with their friends and then came home and asked me to make it for them for dessert. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to learn everything I could about food—what dishes they served in restaurants and how the chefs made them work. I started reading restaurant reviews in the Sun Sentinel each week, selecting a restaurant for my parents to go to. Then I’d ask them to bring me back a menu. At home I studied those menus with a focus I never had for schoolwork. I was eager to learn every detail of those recipes so I could take them to the next