Here we are ready to experience a Christmas that will remain memorable and not in a good way. Even if the most cynical among us, might like the smaller amount of handshakes and kisses that taste like cardboard. There will be restrictions all over the world, which if respected, I hope will reduce the number of new infections as much as possible.
My shop will be closed for three days in a row next week, which is quite rare for Boudoir.
So I'll be home alone for three days. I don't like being alone, especially when it's time to eat. It is not logical for me to cook (I mean cooking for real) for one person and that person in the end is always me. I don't enjoy it, it does not satisfy me and, although I am very greedy, the idea of eating these dishes does even whet my appetite. So I mostly put somenthing on the plate and consume as fast as possible and move on to other activities. But if I have the opportunity to work in the kitchen and then share or give food as a gift, everything changes. So sometimes I organize a dinner ( that won't have place), like we all used to do not later than a year ago and in the end I rediscover the pleasure of eating well, calmly, even alone with my dog and five cats. Some food ends up in vacuum bags and then in the freezer and all the rest I take to friends. Doggy-bags for everyone.
With this dynamic in mind, yesterday I worried about stocking up on food. I dragged a 100 Euro shopping from one end of the city to the other. Now I can make apple strudel, a ramen with black cabbage, salmon with ginger and pink pepper, a bean and soy soup, a persimmon cake, risotto with pumpkin ...
My kitchen, although modern and well equipped, is very small. When I start transforming my food into recipes, soon there is not a free square centimeter left: ingredients everywhere, knives, pans, scraps ... total chaos, yet I think to be very tidy. Sometimes the mess gets out of control and I start putting things down in the living room too. But I enjoy giving a different look, a new texture and also to change the flavor of vegetables, eggs, flour, rice, pasta, sugar, butter and fruits. It seems to me that I somehow have a power over them, as if I were Dr. Frankenstein.
However, I don't think it's all due to boredom or some kind of delusion of omnipotence.
I think I've understood, that there is in me the desire to take care, first of all of the ingredients and then of the people. Or viceversa. Our culture teaches us that raw materials are precious even when they are poor; food has not to get wasted; you can give up many superfluous things, but not eating well. Feeding is also protecting and after all my name comes from the Greek Alexandros, protector of men, so through food, in some way, I can take care of people. Donating food which was cooked thinking about the people you love and who are going to eat it, has a beautiful meaning and a dish, when prepared with love, most likely never goes wrong. Last, but not least, there is also the more superficial and enjoyable aspect of the food theme: food as well as nourishing, gives pleasure too. What a pleasure, let me say! How often is the pleasure of food, compared to the pleasure of sex?
So in this Christmas regulated by social distances and personal protective devices, I will make love with myself, but this time in the kitchen. Merry Christmas everyone.