My father cooked.
My father cooked like cavemen cooked, fire and stone,
Like men in the wild making cacciatore,
Soldiers in a trench chucking a can into the fire,
A party in winter furs eating kidneys raw,
Carved from the back of a beast.
He cooked like people dive into ill-fated romances,
No looks backward and all caution to the wind,
No time even to throw a pinch of salt over one's left shoulder.
Heart broken and fingers burned,
You would learn to love again,
And you would complete the recipe next time,
And it would someday be true love, amazing,
A bite that could sustain long after it was consumed.
My father taught me how to cook.
He taught me by taunting me when I picked too dull a knife,
Without ever showing me how to tell a sharp one.
By screaming at me in impatience when we were a second from crisis,
Without having the foresight to speak softly before danger was nigh.
He taught me the grandeur of making something delicious,
Without extolling the virtue of making it cleanly and safely.
He taught me recklessness,
To risk everything for just one iota of glory,
To act out of insecurity and even suicidality.
"My mother doesn't cook,"
I bragged as a girl.
"You will not find her barefoot and pregnant in a kitchen,
A dangerous place full of sharp knives and hot fires and screaming men;
My father protects her from all that."
But my mother does cook.
It is easy, and quiet,
And so it is difficult to notice,
But it happens.
She taught me to make spinach pies,
And when the frozen mixture itched my hands,
She took the filling from me and did it herself.
Meat, as wrested from nature by brave huntsmen,
Is tough and stringy and crusted with cartilage,
And when I clean it thoroughly,
I am doing as my mother taught me.
Decorated cakes are soft and fine and, yes, unnecessary!
But people eat with their eyes,
And balance the bitterness of life with all things sweet,
So I am doing as my mother taught me.
Setting a kitchen to rights may be as dreary
As removing the dead from the battlefield
After the spoils are won,
But both prevent rot and disease.
We do it for others as much as for ourselves.
That is what my mother taught me:
To act like someone else cares about me,
And to show I care in return.