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I cooked tonight for what feels like the first time in more than two years. In between, I've occasionally made eggs or sandwiches, and done a lot of reheating of food made by other people. I have a special affection for food, but not for cooking - I don't dislike it, and enjoy both chopping and plating, but I'm not especially passionate. Nor have I been horrified by restricted eating choices - although one part of me views meals as a sensual and social experience, an equally big part is hacker happy to eat Taco Bell every day because it's cheap and fast and keeps my body working. To say that I've missed cooking would be an overstatement, even though my choice to stop wasn't so much choice as the circumstance of being kitchenless, whether because I lived in a dorm or because a homeless man was living in it. The best way of looking at things is that I cook if the space is there, but don't seek it out otherwise.
I didn't do anything especially fancy - I threw together some unused odds to make udon noodles in an improvised peanut garlic sauce, with some eggs for extra protein and grilled grapefruit for color. It used two pans and took maybe 15 minutes including prep and waiting for water to boil. It was neither spectacular or disastrous. It felt like stretching in the morning or changing out of jeans. I've made a lot of little steps in the past few days, doing things like cleaning the stove or mopping the floor. Little extensions of peacefulness and responsibility. Sometime tonight I switched to feeling like I live here, and not like the cheerful guest I've been for the last several years. It was so gentle I didn't notice it happening.
The most interesting thing to me is the sense that I'm returning to the improvisational style of cooking I used when I lived with Valancy and gave up for more routinized menus when I lived with Patrick, for reasons I don't remember. I don't know whether it's just a phase I go through when I start up (I'd undergone a cooking hiatus prior to living with Val as well) and abandon as I get bored, or whether it's my natural state of interacting with groceries and was interrupted by a period of life in which I was in many significant ways not myself.
I didn't do anything especially fancy - I threw together some unused odds to make udon noodles in an improvised peanut garlic sauce, with some eggs for extra protein and grilled grapefruit for color. It used two pans and took maybe 15 minutes including prep and waiting for water to boil. It was neither spectacular or disastrous. It felt like stretching in the morning or changing out of jeans. I've made a lot of little steps in the past few days, doing things like cleaning the stove or mopping the floor. Little extensions of peacefulness and responsibility. Sometime tonight I switched to feeling like I live here, and not like the cheerful guest I've been for the last several years. It was so gentle I didn't notice it happening.
The most interesting thing to me is the sense that I'm returning to the improvisational style of cooking I used when I lived with Valancy and gave up for more routinized menus when I lived with Patrick, for reasons I don't remember. I don't know whether it's just a phase I go through when I start up (I'd undergone a cooking hiatus prior to living with Val as well) and abandon as I get bored, or whether it's my natural state of interacting with groceries and was interrupted by a period of life in which I was in many significant ways not myself.
