Last night I stood over the stove, stirring baby red potatoes irregularly and waiting for the chicken to cook through, when I realized this meal, one that I once ate routinely, had not been on the menu for at least six months.
Following upheaval with my living situation earlier this year, those stellar eating habits went straight to hell, a sandwich from a franchised kitchen became the norm. Any cooking skills I claimed before then had decayed. So last night was the first step to returning to the track. Frozen veggie burgers can only sustain for so long.
But the memory thing reminded me of this quote from author Paul Bowles, one which he reads aloud at the end of the film version of his novel The Sheltering Sky:
“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
It's scary to think that the things we treasure the most happen so rarely.
I like cooking for other people, and haven't since I moved, discounting the hummus and pasta salad I put together for an underwhelming party back in July (I picked a bad weekend).
But the stove is back on, and it's only a matter of meals before some new guest arrive.
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