The Kitchen

My apartment is like other apartments: it has a bed; a table; a sofa; shelves for books; a few houseplants; one door in and out, seldom used; and a kitchen.

The kitchen is an odd limb, jutting out from the rest of the studio at an angle, not at all roomy and not quite cramped. It's a size to which I've grown accustomed, packed exactingly: this stack of pots fit here, this stack of plates here, this shelf for oils, this shelf for spices.

The kitchen rivals the bed as the most used part of the apartment, and most loved; and if, as they say, scent is the best conveyor of memory, then the kitchen is where the most memories are made.

People walking through the door turn immediately toward the kitchen. "Mmmm, what are you cooking?"

There's something on the stove right now, a cast iron pot with years of accumulated seasoning soaked into its skin that infuses every new food it touches. The pot gurgles and burbles with curry powder and coconut milk, so the neighbors get envious and confused: "What country am I in?"

Cooking for other people is better than cooking for yourself. When I eat something I've cooked, there are no surprises, only the possibility of disappointment. But when I pass a bowl to someone else, I get to watch their face flicker with delight as they turn the corner from one flavor to the next.

The joy of sharing food is at least equal to the joy of eating it.

My kitchen, like most of my apartment, doesn't have room for a second person: there's no way to make space for them and also move around in the ways to which I've grown accustomed: chopping this, blanching that, tossing in a dash of spice, flurry with garnish. So I ladle out my soup into small containers and put it in the freezer, where it will lose some high points of flavor but will sustain me, in a slightly better than the merest possible way, for weeks to come.