It seems fitting you see, because, in the kitchen at least, I have gone from being a creator to a cleaner. In the time that I was away, my boyfriend went from being an outer gourmand (enjoying others' culinary creations), to one who enjoys making their own as much as eating them. Montréal's famously cold winters, combined with a healthy diet of The Food Network - not to mention pining for me, of course - have resulted in a new-found fascination and delight of all things kitchen. Not that this means he loves vegetables any more than before, but he is certainly more interested in food, where it comes from, and how to cook it.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy savouring the new recipes he tries and it is refreshing to have someone else cook (and cook well). I think what I find hard is that the kitchen was always the one place in the house where I had control, where I could create or mulch around, where I felt most at home. Relinquishing this area to another has been surprisingly...not hard, but it has brought up a lot of mixed emotions.
Unlike lots of hard-up backpackers (in all honesty I'm not sure that there are that many out there anymore), I hardly ever cooked on my trip. At the beginning (in North America), yes. Sometimes at my sister's in Australia... but most of the time, especially in Asia, it was far cheaper, not to mention easier, to enjoy local food cooked up at the market, a roadside stall, or restaurant. By the time I got to Japan I was so used to this lifestyle that, instead of shopping for ingredients to cook something up at whichever hostel/friend's house I was staying at, I would normally go to the 100 Yen Shop and get myself a rice triangle (soon realised the light blue ones were the best) and some fruit.
When I first got back, it was quite shocking to be reunited with my apartment - a whole 4-room space just for me!! - let alone the reality of a fully-equipped kitchen to cook in. But cook I didn't. It just didn't seem natural, after all that time away. And Josh...well, his cooking skills had got rather impressive by this point and he was often offering to whip something up. Yummers!
However, now I must admit to wanting that space back. Not that I don't want him to cook, just sometimes I want it to be only me in there, and only me making the creative choice and putting in the work and reaping the rewards of my labour with him. I miss having the kitchen as my zone, and the meditative nature of chopping, slicing, and cooking things in various ways. It is not that I don't appreciate his efforts nor the meals he makes, but his eagerness to be involved in so many aspects of kitchen life can, at times, feel a bit like crowding.
The other night he was working late and I decided to make a simple dinner for us to enjoy, ready for when he got back. I was starting to prepare everything when he arrived, earlier than anticipated. I kept cooking as he told me about his day and offered to help...call me self-conscious (I am, very much so), but there was something almost intimidating, knowing his leaps and bounds in the kitchen and the simplicity of the meal I was creating before his eyes. Perhaps it had been far too long since I'd been in front of the stove, but I felt almost as though I had forgotten how to stir things properly. Unless it was nerves.
As the song goes: "...And all the consumers know, that when the producer names the tune the consumer has got to dance. That's the way it is. We used to be a producer...and now we are consumers, and finding it difficult to understand..."
