I love it when I have company in the kitchen. I enjoy cooking on my own too, of course, but when there’s another person equally busy cooking, it’s a totally different experience.
Conversation is ongoing, but at any one time, neither person is totally paying attention. So conversation topics are never too intellectual. (Once before, Thaddeus kept asking me ‘thinking’ questions while I was preparing a dinner for guests, and while I managed to fend off his questions and succeed in my culinary task, it was extremely taxing on my brain!)
Wanting and I were preparing lunch for Calvin and Yuehan earlier. It was a glorious cacophony in the OPL kitchen with a dozen different sounds going on as accompaniment to our almost incessant chatter. Interpersonal conversation was peppered with thoughtful ‘monologues’ from both parties, “let’s see… dark soy sauce, oyster sauce… hmm… need the vinegar”/ “I’ve stuffed the tomatoes! It’s nice and full… (reads the recipe again)…darn, I was supposed to stuff it loosely. Ah, who cares!”
Both cooking and cleaning up afterwards is so much faster with two (well, three, counting Calvin’s) pairs of hands (Yuehan had to leave earlier to help a friend move her barang barang). And the fact that we can both occupy the same busy kitchen without getting into each other’s way (much) or interrupting each other’s tasks is… nice. There’s a kind of 默契 so to speak which is very fun and companiable.
Once again I am reminded of how glad I am that Wanting’s staying around in OPL. I told her before that I like the fact that we’re almost completely not self-conscious around each other anymore. It’s as if ‘you’re there but you’re not there‘. And that’s really a blessing and a joy to have when you’re sharing a house with someone who isn’t family. As many people have discovered, good friends do not necessarily make good housemates. I’m certainly fortunate to have gotten a two-in-one deal in the lovely person “Mr John Table” calls “颜姑娘”.
Journey of the Heart 