Of all the little things in my life at the moment, perhaps none give as much pleasure as the simple joy of cooking. I was never great shakes in the US at creating a meal for myself. Carleton forced me onto a meal plan for 4 years, and when I graduated and was financially forced to move back into my parents’ house—a dark, ego-crushing day—my routine mostly continued as it had in high school, save that I would go to work rather than class. Most mornings I didn’t eat, or if I did it was little more than a bagel. Lunches were brown-bagged, and dinners prepared by an industrious parental figure. I suppose, were I forced to psychoanalyze myself, that my aversion to the kitchen was born more of a lack of need than a lack of desire.
The same does not hold true here.
After three bowel-aching months of fried chicken, hardboiled eggs, instant ramen, and lard-laced breads, I am free—even forced—to provide for myself. At first it was intimidating: Do I dare make anything more than pasta with store-bought red sauce? After a few days of boiled carbs, I decided to branch out. I bought a Guatemala-specific Peace Corps cookbook off a volunteer and set to work satisfying my more epicurean palate. The cookbook may contain a few hard-to-find items, but by and large it is specifically designed for the volunteer who only has a typical outdoor market at their disposal. You won’t find very many recipes for Tiramisu (Mascarpone cheese cannot be found), but you will find six delicious ways to prepare lentils. There’s no grilled swordfish, but it does teach you how to make an impromptu oven out of two pots and a tuna fish can.
My brother, when he was in the Peace Corps, made it his culinary mission to perfect a single dish, something that was “restaurant quality,” as he called it. Unintentionally, I have found myself in a similar mindset. Again, perhaps as a tacit homage to him, I find myself copying his choice of curry. Of course, that’s about where it ends. The produce available here is substantially different than it was in Namibia, and so my dish has taken on a decidedly tropical flavor. I now make Mango Curry at least twice per week.
Carrots, onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, and rice can all be found here for between one and two quetzales (12-25 US cents) per pound. Garlic, potatoes, curry powder and mangoes cost a little more, but I’d say the average cost of preparing a meal for myself is around one to two US dollars.
No, the difficulty lies not in the cost of a meal, but the space in which to prepare it. Simply put, my kitchen is tiny. I’m sure you’ve all seen the pictures I’ve posted over the last few weeks, but I have approximately 3 square feet of counter space. If I use a cutting board, it takes up half of my prep area. Laying out the vegetables I intend to use is a careful balance; if even one tomato gets away from me, it’s liable to create a domino effect and knock all my food to the floor.
I economize the space as best I can. I was bequeathed a wonderful hutch that houses all of my spices, pans, and larder, and it has become second nature to cook “up” rather than across a table. That is, when my dishes are not on the stovetop, they’re stashed in nooks and crannies next to my dried chickpeas and oatmeal. I still sometimes run out of space and am forced to use my bed to temporarily support auxiliary dishes.
I’m starting to get the hang of viewing my living situation as cozy rather than cramped. I set my laptop on top of my bookshelf (filled with clothes) and play music while I chop my vegetables into unequally thin slices. I usually start with the hard, drier produce, things like carrots, because they don’t make a mess of my single cutting board. Next comes onions and potatoes, and when the three are sliced and the frying pan is hot, I toss them in.
Later come the moderately juicy foods like tomatoes and garlic. They leave my surface feeling damp and slightly sticky, but it’s nothing compared to the mango. I still don’t really know how I’m supposed to cleave the mango meat from its large, oblong pit, and it leads to a rather messy butchering. I can usually peel the thick skin back with my hand, but then I’ve got a soupy yellow mass about half the size of a football and far more slippery. Little by little my paring knife cuts chunks off, though when it’s done it looks not unlike the murder scene of a badly jaundiced Mr. Potato Head.
At this point I usually have to run to the pila and wash my hands, or the entire meal will digress into some kind of amateur comedy routine where everything I touch ends up sticking to me. Until now the meal has had a slightly rushed feeling to it, like I’m dueling against the clock. Will I finish dicing the onions before the olive oil begins to burn? What if I haven’t finished with the mango before the rice has to be taken off the burner?
It’s a wonderful feeling to have the rice fully cooked and the curry sizzling away fragrantly. I toss in some spices: A couple dashes of curry powder here, a dollop of cumin there; I never measure them out precisely. Cooking for me involves a sense of exploration, and I’d never want to dumb it down to simply following a recipe. It’s far more exciting to ask myself what putting in some basil and parsley would do than feel confined to the pages of a cookbook. I look to mine for the broad strokes, not the specifics. Perhaps God is in the details, but perfection tastes so much better when I stumble upon it.
When the meal is ready I usually turn 90 degrees from my stove and eat it while sitting on my bed. My water bottle, the only beverage I have, sits between my feet. I own no table, and my dinner guests are usually Biggie, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Manu Chao. They’re very articulate, but sometimes the conversation feels a little one-sided. I’m not complaining by any means; my landlords have made it very clear that I’m welcome at their table, but I kind of like the solitude at the moment. I’m no longer a bag of potatoes as I sometimes felt with my earlier family, and can decide what I eat and when. I am free to make salt-free, sugar-free, meat-free, dairy-free meals for myself, especially since I have no refrigerator in which to store most of those things. I never thought it was possible, but I’ve become a vegan by convenience.
Check out the pictures for this week at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week15?authkey=Gv1sRgCM-98oDVn9-mkgE#.
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