"Upon walking into Eva's kitchen, something profound happened to Delphine.
She experienced a fabulous expansion of being."
-- Louise Erdrich, The Master Butchers Singing Club
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| Me, Mackenna and Jill 7-2-14 |
"I feel fortunate to be part of the cooking community.
We learn from each other."
-- Marcus Samuelsson
"Lucy settled into August's kitchen as if they were a family."
-- Susan Richards Shreve, You Are The Love Of My Life
Mostly I cook alone.
My husband grills the meat, but I do everything else. Sometimes I also grill the meat.
Occasionally Sam takes over the kitchen on one of his baking binges. And Leo scrambles himself eggs from time to time.
But that's pretty much it. Otherwise it's just me in there.
My kitchen is my domain.
And I like it like that.
But yesterday I had the opportunity to share my kitchen with two very special people.
My very dear and incredible friend Jill was here for a visit en route from West Virginia to her new home in Chicago. And Leo had abandoned a lovely young woman -- his girlfriend Mackenna -- at our dinner table to go to football practice.
It was time to start supper, so the three of us apron-ed up, got out the big knives, and got cooking.
When Jill comes to visit, it's a foregone conclusion that we'll be having Taco Night. She always counts on it, and she always gets it. Yesterday, as often happens, she also helped make it. We recruited Mackenna from the sidelines and put her to work as well.
While Jill diced tomatoes and broke down a head of iceberg lettuce, I taught Mackenna how to make hummus and my famous, velvety smooth avocado-lime dip.
I cooked the meat and shredded the cheese, while Jill, who is vegan, prepped the rice and got the black beans started.
Meanwhile, Mackenna set the table. She also cubed the tofu -- Yes. Tofu in a burrito. It's delicious. -- which Jill coated in spices while I heated a pan of oil to fry it in.
Leo wouldn't be home until later, Sam had plans to meet a friend for sushi, so when my husband got home from work, it was like he'd walked onto the set of Sister Wives.
The four of us -- this fresh new assemblage of faces around my dinner table -- had a lovely time devouring what we'd made. Jill loaded up one of her famous "diapers full of delicious," a burrito so full and bulging and dripping that it looked like, well, I think the name says it.
Mackenna's eyes were clearly bigger than her tiny dancer stomach, and she artfully built a burrito that rolled up to be the size of a swaddled newborn. She gave it a pretty good go, but tapped out with more than half of it still clutched in both fists and a glazed look in her eyes.
I've always been a little jealous of those multi-generational families of women who gather in the kitchen, standing hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, re-creating age-old recipes and cooking secrets, chatting and laughing and sharing the simple joy of making good food together.
I got a happy little taste of it yesterday.
It tasted good.
