Since I moved to New York, I've barely spent any time in the kitchen. It's incredibly disorienting, losing that time, that space. I don't think I realized how much I relied on it. I had trouble, in the wake of the mess of last year, figuring out why I was cooking, what it meant. It had come to be a shared activity for me, a moment of care, a time to make tangible my feelings, my desire to comfort and nurture. By golly, that sounds domestic and pathetic, but it is what it is. I wanted to feed others. It's why I grew to love cooking - watching my father - it's how I view my relationship to food - as a source of warmth, of community.
This kitchen is generic and hot and devoid of character or any signs that anyone values the space. I don't have my pots, my spoons. So I've been making my single-girl dinner a lot (EVOO, toasted pepper, frozen peas, whole wheat pasta, parmparmparm, best served out of the pot with a large glass of wine), or Molly's chickpeas, and I bookmark all the recipes I will try when I finally have my own space again, and can dance around my kitchen to Otis Redding, singing loudly, drinking freely, touching and tasting and feeding someone, anyone, even if it is just me, my brave little body, relentlessly alive, very hungry.
The photos above are of a strawberry cake I made for an indoor picnic on one of my last nights in DC. It made the kitchen smell like rainbows and kittens. Recipe at Smitten Kitchen, obviously. I might add some lemon zest next time. There will be a next time.
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