I've been cooking. What else is there to do, right?
My last exam was on the 24th and at 2am BST (only 9pm in Kingston, Ontario, where I spent my year abroad) I officially finished my third year of university. It was bizarre -- to say the least -- to be sat at my kitchen table, alone, rather than in the middle of an exam hall, surrounded by a hundred other stressed out students. There were no relieved hugs outside the double doors, or celebratory drinks at the nearest pub.
Instead, I sent I sent a stream of messages to my friend who had sat the same exam as me:
wow
We're done
We did it
queens
Officially over
Tears?? maybe relevant
We raised virtual glasses and went to bed (after another hour or so reminiscing). I felt so underwhelmed. Guilty for feeling underwhelmed. There I was, having spent (almost) a year in Canada, visiting amazing places and meeting amazing people. I had opportunities there I wouldn't have had anywhere else. I made friends there that I'll have for life. And I felt underwhelmed.
Given the circumstances, I suppose it's allowed. It wasn't exactly how I imagined the year ending. (At least my housemate and I had the foresight to take some faux graduation pictures before our flights home. I'll always have the self-timer photographs of us in front of the Queen's sign, even if I won't ever get back the $80 I spent on merch.)
Having finished, I've been left with a lot of spare time on my hands. (I say that as if I haven't spent the month since I got back lazing around and only doing uni work when I absolutely had to. Still, this is different.)
So, I've been cooking. What else is there to do, right?
(Aside from starting and then putting down books, binging season seven of Brooklyn-99, diving headfirst into the Iliad for my dissertation, and trying to place at least third in nightly pub quizzes.)
As I write this (standing, it's good for the back you know) I'm in between steps. There's a tray of broccoli, red onion, and carrots (soaked in Kingston Olive Oil Co.'s Tea Rose Infused Olive Oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper) roasting in the oven. Only three minutes left. Then I'll add the veg to a pot of boiling water (3 cups and, yes, I do need to stop using American recipes) and wait, again.
I've found that, a lot of the time, cooking is just a matter of waiting. And timing. Whenever anyone compliments my mum on her roast dinner, she brushes it away. It's just putting things in the oven! I'm only watching the clock! is what she says, whilst we gorge ourselves on fluffy roasties and honey soaked gammon (before I was veggie, of course).
I don't like waiting. I'm impatient by nature and waiting means more time for thinking. Overthinking, in my case. If I have nothing to do my mind wanders back to arguments I could have won, drunk moments I wish I'd thought through a bit more, people I shouldn't have trusted... it's a pretty miserable train to get on.
With a tray in the oven, or a pot bubbling away on the hob... the train never pulls in. When I'm cooking, I'm grounded. Even as I watch the timer tick, turn the mixer higher because the batter's not quite smooth enough, shuffle the onions around so they don't burn -- I'm waiting, but my mind's not wandering.
Before I started cooking the soup, I was watching Julie & Julia, a Nora Ephron film with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. With those three women at the helm, you can't really go wrong and the film is a masterpiece. Of cooking and joy. I think I spent 80% of the film smiling to myself -- my cheeks hurt as the credits rolled.
I was in the middle of a conversation when the impulse to make soup hit me. We had broccoli, we had carrots, there was half a red onion left over from the stir fry the other night. Serendipity. The film had made me want to cook, so I did, two forms of escapism coming together to drag me away from the misery train, as I replied to my mate about an hour late after leaving him on read:
sorry i was making soup
unrelated to watching julie&julia
i lied, it was definitely related
For all the memes about quarantine cooking going around, it's probably been my healthiest coping mechanism. It's also brought me a little closer to the community around me; I gave a plate of my baked chocolate chip cookies to our next door neighbours and the wife (nearing 90) braved the stairs for the first time in a week apparently, to come and say thank you. Of course, we kept two metres apart but you don't really notice the physical distance when you're all sharing in the same thing.
Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It's not what I thought it was. I thought it was all about--I don't know, confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have, no question. But there's something else, something that these things grow out of. It's joy.
- Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell (2005)
The picture is not of my soup or chocolate chip cookies, but instead a sweet potato curry I made last week
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