If you want to find magic, come to my kitchen.
Some may have read that I only have a kitchen because it came with the house, and that is true. Its tinyness spoke to me.
I had dreams, once. There is a bookcase filled with them. Oh, the spectacular culinary creations I would serve my friends, who would be knocked out by my unflustered skill.
The dreams were delayed for the future when I had time for chopping, peeling, sautéeing, braising and stuff. Not a work-day 20-minute spag bol made with packet sauce and tinned tomato and onions. Or sausage, mash, peas and packet gravy, or mac and cheese with packet sauce, or grilled chicken and (pre-cooked, frozen and revived in the micro) rice, peas and packet gravy.
Menu rotated. You get the gist.
Back then, I fed mom, dad and son, so vegetarian was out. While I was “cooking” one day, my son proudly announced he had learnt about Buddhism at (primary) school and he was going to be a Buddhist. As he strolled down the passage, I congratulated him and pointed out he would have to stop eating animals because it was the Buddhist way to harm no living thing. There was a short silence before he popped his head back in to tell me he had changed his mind.
The few times I had “guests” were disasters. Twice, we all stood around the kitchen, slurping wine while the damn chicken stubbornly resisted physics. When it was finally cooked, we were too tired and emotional to eat. Another time, my sister Jan and I were cooking for a relative whose mom was a proper chef. The three of us stood in the kitchen catching up while Jan and I clucked over the stove. It was a bit delayed, but we made it to the prettily set table and tucked in. One piece of chicken was discovered to have maintained its little plastic wrapper, and it wasn’t on Jan’s or my plate. The humiliation.
For all that it’s useless in its core function, it holds so many memories: the extended family gathered shoulder-to-shoulder, talking above one another and great guffaws of laughter.
It is the place I held one of my beloved dogs, a great big gentle black lab called Teeny, as she was set free from pain. It was the hardest, ugliest crying I’d ever done until Jan died.
Jan and I sitting on the floor “whispering” to each other late one night, with a few glasses of wine, until the boy stormed in, telling us we were talking so loud he couldn’t sleep. How we laughed. Whispering has become a family joke.
So, yes, there is magic. But since the old back has crumbled entirely, if it takes longer than 15 minutes, it’s not on the menu. I love unbroken, sunny-side-up fried eggs and French toast. What I want to know is how eggs know when they’re going to be fried or French-toasted. Every time I want the fried ones, they break. Can crack eight for the toast, and not one does. Have to stab them to death with a fork.
They must absorb the kitchen magic and do what they want.
- Lindsay Slogrove is the news editor
The Independent on Saturday