Cooking for one

Sitting at my computer after 10PM with dishwater evaporating from my fingers, I figure I’d drop in and bang out a few thoughts that have crossed my mind in the last hour or so.

I’ve been diving in to the new world of cooking for myself. Cooking for one. Those who’ve done it for extended periods of time know quite well that cooking for two or three people is a completely different game than cooking for one. In mechanical as well as social/spiritual/emotional ways.

Frustrations abound, starting with the shopping. The whole procedure of picking food up at the store and making efficient use of the stuff before it goes bad is a glaring challenge. For instance, do you have any idea how long it takes a single guy to eat one white onion without making onion rings? Or take sour cream. Unless I’m whipping up a quick stroganoff, the act of grabbing a pint of sour cream off the shelf must be accompanied by a quiet calculation of how I’m gonna use it before the expiration date. For me personally, sour cream is used in two situations: baked potato and Mexican food. So, as I examine the date on the underside of the sour cream container, I’m faced with the commitment of cooking something that involves a baked potato, or laying out some sort of Mexican food agenda for the next week. Otherwise, half of the sour cream is getting tossed, and I’ve wasted a buck forty-nine.

Speaking of Mexican food, would it be out of the question for these people to package up corn tortillas in sets less than thirty-six? Do they have any idea what kind of plan a guy needs to put together in order to eat thirty-six corn tortillas before they mold? NOT ALL OF US HAVE A DOZEN KIDS, YOU KNOW.

It’s become clear to me that the act of cooking for one is an awful lot like writing a story for an illiterate world, or painting a picture for closed eyes, or writing a song for deaf ears. It’s a pointless endeavor, unless:

a) You enjoy the solitary creative act itself, finding Zen in the mechanical process of it all.

b) You enjoy consuming what you’ve created. Alone. No witnesses, no audience, nobody to share it with. Self-indulgence.

That said, I’ve got my enchiladas in the oven.