Apron Anxiety

Alyssa Shelasky, the writer behind the hilarious blog Apron Anxiety, used to be a celebrity writer and Manhattan "It" girl. But after she met and fell in love with former Top Cheffer, Spike Mendelsohn, she went from living on brown rice, Zone bars and Pinkberry to learning to cook and appreciate food. Shelasky dreamed up Apron Anxiety almost two years ago but kept it to herself: "I wasn’t sure anyone would care about my cold feet in the kitchen, or my life with a chef." She got serious a few months ago, and we’re glad she did, in part because of lines like this: [My fiancé] comes home starving...too sweet to complain about my overcooked chicken du jour–prepared with reluctance, red wine and a push-up bra."

Shelasky breathes life into the food blog medium, and Apron Anxiety, still in its infancy, reads a bit like a juicy, tell-all diary entry written after a little too much wine. It is personal, and always fun to read. And the food isn’t half bad either. When Shelasky and Mendelsohn moved in together in Washington, D.C., Shelasky’s life slowed down. She stopped eating "fake food" and started thinking seriously about groceries, good knives and copper pots. She also began baking: "I could eat cake all day, every day."
 
Shelasky cooks and blogs about foods she can’t screw up – Rainy Day Rigatoni with Eggplant and Killer Chocolate Chip Cookies that Make You Feel Talented. It's still easier for her to write about Zooey Deschanel and cheap massages, but that’s the charm of Apron Anxiety – Shelasky's authenticity and naivete as she feels her way around the food world and her own apartment kitchen. We can laugh with Shelasky when she screws up a recipe because we know what it feels like to burn a tray of brownies. We can even chuckle at her expense. She doesn’t mind: "I want to communicate what it's like to be the partner of a chef, because it's both enviable and impossible. I also want non-cooks to get over themselves and try a few things.’’