"Good Cook" - A Gift from a Friend

One of my favorite kitchen utensils is my "Good Cook" manual can opener. It actually has the words “Good Cook” in a little silver decal up top, like one of those fashionable “positive thinking” mantras, or a command to one’s dog.

As it happens, I have become a “good cook”, lately, if not a great one. I certainly don’t assume the can opener’s optimistic brand name had anything to do with that, nor is it why I like the item. Made of smooth white plastic, it feels balanced and comfortable in my hand, unlike it's predecessor (one of those large, rather squarish manual openers that are functional but rather clumsy. Or perhaps they are simply not designed for lefties like me.) Unlike it's predecessor, or my mom's 1970's countertop electric model, it does not serrate the top of the can, but cuts the can in a very clean line just under the top seal. I have yet to injure myself on the cans once they are opened.

The opener also has a bottle opener, and a place to try and wrench open stubborn olive oil caps, but I always forget about those functions. I don't open cans very often but when I do, I want something that will cut the can without leaving me bleeding on nasty bits of metal. And this item has worked just fine on that count for at least five years.

I also have an odd fondness for thing, if it is possible to be "fond" of a kitchen utensil, because it was a gift from a friend who has sinced passed out of my life. (Although not, thankfully, from her own.) Cooking was not something we shared or discussed all that much, as I did not do as much cooking then as now, nor was it yet a passion for me, or at the very least a hobby. My Sweetie and I shared the task more equally, and yet it was simply a chore that needed to be done.

The passions my friend and I shared at the time were writing, Moulin Rouge (the Baz Luhrmann version), and history, amongst other things. I am sorry, though, that I wasn't more of a cook then, because I'm sure we would have shared that as well. (I know we both loved to eat, loved culinary pleasures, even if our specific tastes diverged.) In fact, she did send me, among other recipes, instructions on roasting a turkey that involved soaking cheesecloth in pomegranate juice, draping the bird in the fabric, and then at some point in the roasting process very carefully peeling the cheesecloth off before finishing the bird. Time-consuming, possibly dangerous, and damnably delicious.

We have not spoken in at least five years, as best as I can recall. Since that time it is cooking, not writing, that has become my primary “passion”; it’s in the kitchen, not at the computer or writing desk, where I am able to focus my mind, to put aside fear, anger, sadness, or simple confusion, where I am best able to “be in the moment”.

I don’t know what caused my friend and I (for I still think of her as that, despite the years and the silence between us) to drift apart, although I have no trouble believing the fault was mine. Was I critical when I ought to have been supportive? Should I have talked and argued less, and listened more? Was I abusive, without meaning to be?Thoughtless? Or simply annoying and tiresome? A bit of all of the above?

Or perhaps there is no “fault”, per se, and it’s just the way life is. I suppose friendships can die, of their own accord, like love affairs, like flowers, like children and other loved ones. I don’t know.

I have lost many friends in my life, foundered more than one potential friendship. Making, and keeping, friendships is not a skill that I have ever mastered, Whereas I am well-practiced at self-isolation; and the proof is in the pudding, or why else would I be sitting here at the keyboard, essentially talking to myself? I cannot, however, blame the computer, blame the seductiveness of the internet, for my unability/unwillingness to connect; it only intensifies traits and habits that manifested themselves in me since I was in kindergarden, at the very least.

I would like the think that I am not, however, a hopeless case. After all, I have learned how to be a good cook, not through any particular practice but from simple repetition, I suppose, and too much time on my hands. In ten years I’ve gone from someone who followed recipes slavishly, to looking around at my kitchen and asking “Would this go with that...and what happens if I put this together and...?” And the result is, more and more often, something very good indeed.

Therefore it seems ironic to me that I am more isolated than I have ever been, now, because it would please me to be able to share what I make in the kitchen with others. There is an egotistical side to that, of course, a need for praise and attention. But I like to think that it is not only about self-centered gratification. (Although I may be fooling myself on that account.) To me, cooking is not only a necessity; it is and can be an art and it is certainly a pleasure, a form of meditation, and a form of love-making. A meal, lovingly prepared, says “be well, be healthy, be welcome” to those who receive it.

If I can learn to cook, then, can I not learn to connect with others? Can I not learn to make friends more easily, to keep them in my life, and increase the fullness and joy in my life thereby? I hope so - although I don’t think I’m quite so optimistic as my can opener. Perhaps I ought to embroider my oven mitts, or my apron, with a postive mantra: “Good Friend”.

Nonetheless, I do think of my lost friend every time I pull out that can opener. I can’t help myself. It’s one of the few tangible, physical traces of our friendship left to me, aside from a few books, and a very soft, beloved, t-shirt from her trip to Rome.

I hope she is well, that she is happy, that she has forgiven me and, if she thinks of me, does so with fondness. And I wish she could taste the "mexican hot cocoa" cookies I baked last week, or the bean and spinach soup simmering on my stove this afternoon. I like to think she would enjoy them.