I truly enjoy cooking. Simply being in my kitchen makes me smile. I don’t need fancy chef’s knives or stainless steel appliances to make me happy. What I have in my kitchen these days is good enough. As long as the stove and oven are in respectable working condition, I have some small amount of counter space and good ingredients; I’m one happy camper.
Leith and I spend most of our Sundays in our cozy apartment, him on the floor in the living room with his Hot Wheels and remote control R2D2, along with a few cooking pots and Tupperware. I’m in the kitchen, with my head in the oven, or my hands in a bowl.
It’s a rather tranquil time for us, punctuated only by the noise of the Kitchen Aid whirring or every so often or the oven timer chiming. He walks around, toting a small copper pot, filling it with various impedimenta, pretending to cook, and munching on whatever I have to hand at the time.
We make up dinner as we go along, depending on what is left in the fridge and how much energy I have to expend on cooking. And of course depending on how much energy he has and how much attention and entertaining he requires. Lately dinners have been a-little-of-this and a-little-of-that, experiments that for the most part, end up as scrumptious meals.
I love dishes that use a lot of different components. When I can take a bunch of different ingredients that at first glance might not “go” together and come out with something delicious, I think I have done my job. When everyone at the table leaves happily smacking their lips, or wanting seconds I feel a warm happy sensation creep up from my own satisfied tummy.