Until yesterday, it had been a long time since I had done one of my very most favorite things -- hosted a dinner party. The past few months, okay, six and a half months to be more exact, I haven't really done much in the kitchen. For various reasons, I was in survival mode. I ate out, ordered in (Pizza Hut's Wing Wednesday was my very good friend), zapped frozen dinners, baked a pizza, or relied on the kindness of friends to feed me (I am sure you are reading this, you know who you are, and I cannot thank you enough for taking care of me). School kept me busy, then I was packing up my little house to move to a bigger house, then I was unpacking my things into my bigger house, and then I jumped into summer school.
I have been going through the motions, eating because I need to or because it makes me feel better (and no need to expound on the dangers of finding comfort in food, I know them). For a long while, my love for cooking utterly disappeared. I would find sparks of it here or there (making a cheesecake for some friends, a lasagna for someone who just had a baby, a pie for a housewarming party, chopped bbq for someone's birthday at work). . . but even then, I was just going through the motions -- following the recipe exactly (If you know me, you know that's something I rarely do). I baked a lot more because,
for me, baking does not require creativity or spontaneity (in fact,
my experiences with baking have led me to believe that creativity and spontaneity are frowned upon --
just ask my family members about the cookie debacle of 2004).
I forgot how much I need to be in the kitchen. Cooking and entertaining is a huge part of who I am. And for a while, I lost that part of myself. Preparing delicious (and often out of the ordinary) dishes, laughing and joking over a good meal (be it gourmet or down home) -- feeds my soul -- and so, going without it for so many months -- it's no wonder I felt lost -- I was missing a big part of my identity -- I was starving my soul.
And it was, in part, my own fault. I let myself get too busy. I made excuses about time, the size of my house, the expense, the fact that other people were too busy themselves, or had kids, etc. Until, yesterday, late morning, I decided. . . enough was enough. I was going to invite people over and force myself to really get back into the kitchen.
And that's just what I did.
After summer school, I stopped off at a local grocery store and bought all the things I would need to make a semi-gourmet meal. On the menu: Shrimp Burgers, Mushroom Burgers (for my veggie lovin' friends), and Turkey burgers Puerto Vallarta Style. For sides: Vegetarian Couscous Salad and roasted sweet potato fries. I started working at about 3:00 PM. Washed the produce, and got out my fancy chef's knife with the red handle (and boy do I love that knife) and my giant bamboo cutting board. I lined everything up, and I began.
I chopped a lot of things yesterday. Bell peppers, serranos, mushrooms, scallions, garlic, and, of course, onions. Now, usually, I cannot chop an onion without crying. In fact, even my grandmother's tried-and-true method of holding a piece of bread in your mouth while chopping the onion, does not usually keep the tears at bay. I always chop the onion last because I know it will make tears stream down my face . . . and I hate that they always make me cry. . . yet, those pungent onions, well, they must be chopped, no meal would be complete without them.
While I was chopping onions yesterday, fearing the tears would start at any moment, the entire situation snapped into perspective. . . and chopping onions became a metaphor for life. Or at least, for my life.
When it comes time to chop the onions, I have been known to try to find a way to do without them, but onions tend to be necessary ingredients in many-a-dish, so they cannot be excluded. So, then I try to chop them as quickly as possible. However, doing so usually leads to uneven pieces, or places where the onion has not been cut through completely, and sometimes my haste makes waste or just a big ol' mess (and I have, more than once, come close to loosing a part of my thumb). So, now, I have learned to move efficiently but carefully through the process of chopping onions. The point of chopping the onions is not to get through it quickly, but to chop them in such a way that including them in a recipe improves the meal as a whole.
So, chopping the onions, while not usually pleasant, is necessary. And without the onions, the dish would be lacking an important component, one of the best flavors, the element that makes it whole.
So I chopped the onions yesterday. And the meal turned out great. And the dinner party was fun. I fed my friends. And I fed my soul.
Now, my new house is really starting to feel like my home.
