Illustration by Jorge González
I used to cook dinner at home every night. I have always been a fussy, multistep-recipe, sporadic sort of home cook. There is little I like better than leaning over a stockpot or peering into a dim oven to try to divine the mysteries of whatever is going on in there. The pandemic took this inclination and made it a daily habit. What else was there to do?
Cooking was a way to make the time pass, to put myself to work in a way I otherwise didn’t really have the opportunity for. If you’re reading in these lines the pandemic experience of a childless, email-class worker, you’re right to—my experience of the pandemic was one of isolation and quiet, not of overwhelm and new responsibilities.
Cooking was a way to make things happen, to start the night with a pile of raw meat and vegetables and seasoning, purchased in a furtive biweekly masked-up trip to the grocery store, and finish it with a full belly and neatly packed Tupperware for the next day’s lunch. I continued working from home for the next four years, and for the next four years it felt natural and good to shut my laptop and immediately start peeling and chopping. It made me—the more abstracted, messier, more lackadaisical partner—feel accomplished, like I was contributing something to the running of the household.
