บท 27: Chopsticks

- DOMINIK - 

Cooking makes me feel useful. I can focus on the ingredients and the heat, the rhythm that develops in moving from one pot to the next and then back to the cutting board. Chopping jalapeños and green onions. Reheating the chicken Maria made tonight. At the last minute, slicing some shiitake mushrooms and adding those. Putting the soft boiled eggs into an ice bath to stop them cooking. 

Cooking includes practical, useful skills, and it puts me in control of something. I can control the cook time of the chicken, the degree to which the eggs boil, the flavor added to broth. It's therapeutic when there are far more things that I can't control—things that are complicated. Things that are ruining people's lives.