May 11, 2012

My dearest,

I’m preparing the ingredients for dinner, getting them ready now so that I can start cooking the moment we get home later. It’s quiet in the house in the middle of the day. Just me alone. Too quiet maybe. So I bring my laptop to the kitchen, set it on the countertop and play some ‘Nigella’s Kitchen’ while I slice and dice.

I’m not really watching the show, of course. Wouldn’t want to chop off a fingertip by mistake, would I? But listening to Ms. Lawson’s soothing, sultry voice waxing lyrical about transforming wilting vegetables into a green curry? That’s quite okay. It doesn’t matter that I’m chopping up some broccoli as she gives instructions on how to make a chocolate chip bread & butter pudding. It’s her company that matters.

And if, after I’m done with cooking tonight and we sit down to dinner, there’s a faint ghost of one of Nigella’s recipes in my dishes? Well, I can live with that.

This is not Nigella’s kitchen. There are no soft lighting and sexy wafting steam. But it is my kitchen and this is my cooking and so long as you enjoy what I put before you, why then — I can live with that.

Yours, ever and always.