Kitchen Magic

My house fills with the smell of beans cooking, bathing in a mix of aromatics - onion, garlic, cumin, and bay. This morning I made a buttermilk cake, my grandmother’s recipe, studded with rhubarb from my backyard last season.

I can’t seem to stay away from the kitchen, a compulsion of sorts. Faced with free time I seem to start cooking, and one project becomes two, becomes three. There is an element to this fervor that feels illicit somehow, indulgent, exposing the center of my being. It is me as a kid, climbing on top of our townhouse kitchen counters to reach the flour and sugar. To say cooking and baking brings me joy would be an oversimplification, feeling more like a language I naturally find myself dreaming in and the relief of finally getting a chance to speak it.

The magic lies in the lack of purpose, the way my brain can turn off while my hands are busy, the mess I can make, piling up the countertops while nobody is looking. The luxury of time spent so easily. This is different cooking than for work, different baking than for someone’s birthday. I don’t always do a good job, it’s not always pretty. I alone can taste the results and determine if the outside world will ever know they existed.

Once I choose to share something I’ve made, the feeling shifts. The food is useful again, generating smiles, praise, a bright spot for those who are hurting. People resonate with my creations, resonate with me. I am braced for a negative reception that doesn’t come. My mother never chastised me when she returned to the townhouse to cake and cookies in the oven (although I was told to wash my dishes). My boyfriend doesn’t question why I made pickled beets when the door of our fridge, heavy on it’s hinges, couldn’t possibly hold another condiment. My friend and I share triangular slices of the rhubarb cake with cups of tea and we both go back for seconds. I am proud.

rye biscuits with cheddar and spring onions

buttermilk cake with rhubarb