What a difference a meal makes

[muckefuck]

So while I was sleeping in to a ripe mid-morning hour, monshu was off to the market for fixins. These turned out to be pork shoulder, sweet potatoes, zucchini, bib lettuce, fresh basil, and...Lithuanian parmesan? (As if that wasn't odd enough, the label also said "Goya".) The pork got treated to an herb rub with ras-al-hanout; the potatoes were boiled, mashed, and baked; the zukes were chopped, steamed, then mixed with basil leaves and grated cheese; and the bib lettuce made a simple salad to finish off.

We ate it all out on the deck, which was mysteriously deserted. Over the course of the weekend, we met several neighbours out there, but tonight they were all off at the arts fair or somewhere and it was just us as the dying sunlight illuminated the oversize tree-of-heaven across the alley. One of these neighbours had left us a bottle of merlot as half his housewarming gift (the other half being a can of spam) and monshu drank it as an accompaniment.

foodpoisoningsf likes to talk about the nurturing power of cooking, and it's certainly true that there was something about eating the first ordinary hot meal prepared within the confines of our own kitchen that was qualitatively different from other mini-milestones. Not that it was entirely ordinary--it was amusing at times to see the Old Man scurry between the half-unpacked boxes shoved off into the dining room looking for some utensils or other buried under a heterogeneous load of vessels and implements.

After dinner, we moved indoors to watch the light fade in the west from within our front room. The windows were still open, cool air was wafting in, and I set a tea light down on the barrel between us. There I confessed that I still hadn't reached the point of thinking of this as "our place" and might not until after all my things were here as well. But certainly I was closer than I'd been even earlier in the afternoon, when I'd felt the oppressed about the number of important decisions still left for me to take. All in good time.

Comments

The "first"

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I consciously think of the "first time" in a new home. The first meal, first time sleeping, etc. Since it took 2 weeks to get the gas turned on, the first shower was an event as well.

When I left my house in Richmond four years ago, I said "good bye" to it.

Chuck