What the Picture Does Not Show

There are a lot of ways pictures can both represent and distort reality. Take this one for instance. It is a plate of food on a bed. You see that the bed does not have sheet. Because I am a bachelor without a lady in my life and I am so incredibly lazy that I have not bothered to put sheets on. You will also notice the plate- cheap but effective.

Finally, your eyes will come to the food. It may look like a dinner right out of a package that you can easily buy at the grocery store. But far from it. Eyes will stray across the cheese- cheese that I added at the last minute. Cheddar because that's the only thing I have; the only cheese I bother to carry because again, I am alone, why do I need to carry multiple cheeses? Cheddar is solidly American, a man's cheese, a sharp cheese.

The vegetables, stir-fry, that again I added in the last moments because I wanted to be at least sort of healthy. The bread, too, came late. Organic honey bread that I bought even though I am not a hippy bear.

You will observe the chicken. What is there to tell about? Nothing much, really. You cannot see the marinade I put it in. You cannot see that this tasted actually good. You will notice that it is not a koolaid purple like my last attempt with chicken. But you will not notice how I prepared it- that I took about 1/5th of my light Italian dressing, poured that into a plastic bag, took about an equal amount of white wine and poured that in the ziplock bag and then tossed the chicken in there before taking my California Lemon Peel spice container and tossing some carelessly onto the chicken.

Finally, what you cannot see is the look on my face as I taste the chicken. You certainly have read about my lack of taste buds but you will not be able to register my satisfying expression as I note, for a split second, lemon, wine and surprise, an overtone of Italian dressing or as I suck delightfully on the tender meat.

And most importantly of all, you will not- and cannot know- my feeling of delayed gratification- that I was so tempted to go to the CAC or the Bowling Alley after the gym because I was so hungry- but stayed the course and made an actually decent meal.

The picture shows many things but it certainly cannot show you that. Or the feeling of a job well done.

The End.

My Unique Kitchen Life

When I moved to my BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters), despite my small room, I felt a great deal of relief. Here, finally, I had my own place. I was a man. And while I was neither renting nor owning this little room (its the government's after all), I could call it my own. That bed? Mine. The desk? Mine. That bathroom? Mine. And most importantly of all, I had a kitchen.

Well, sort of. Its barely a kitchen. No counter space at all and one and a half cupboards. But I had an oven and stove and full size refrigerator and a sink.

As you know, I barely exercised this kitchen at all. But I've felt it out and my kitchenette, with a great deal of wariness, has also felt me out (I don't blame it, I'm a single male who has never cooked before and is more liable to blow something up than to cook something great). And as I've used it, it has presented its own unique challenges.

The most formidable challenge has been my lack of space. It is small. I don't have any counter space. I barely have any cupboard space (one cupboard with one shelf and a cupboard with some kind of ventilation thing in the middle of it and the cupboard isn't even on the wall straight). So I have been forced to improvise. I mostly use my oven for counter space (I have a little plastic shelf thing that doubles as a dish rack). My lack of drawers has forced me to put my silverware and cooking utensils in my washroom (next to the bathroom, separated by a door).

Don't get me started on how this limits my ability to dry my dishes and utensils. I create all sorts of arrangements. My salt holder next to my spatula next to my bread next to my olive oil. Plates on top of tupperware tops on cups perched on pans balanced on a single knife edge. Its a cross between the most awkward dinner party ever and the most dangerous game of Jenga the world has ever seen.

Utensils are irritating too. Those bastards take up too much room and yet cannot find the appropriate balance to settle in comfortably (and equally) in one of my red solocups that I tried to serve as their drying cup. (They always tip over) Tonight I looked up in my half cupboard and realized I could just dump them into my measurer pourer not exactly beaker thingy (broader base). Thank you for helping out thing whose name I don't know despite growing up with one my entire life.

My sink presents its own challenges. I cannot figure out my stupid faucet. Its got one of those joystick like controls where it pitches and yaws and that determines how hot or cold the water becomes and how much water pressure there is. It is also extremely sensitive. An attempted adjustment from lukewarm to slightly hot results in an adjustment from lukewarm to "SONOFAB*ITCHMOTHERF&CKER!!!" To take the joystick analogy further- if my handle were the controls to an aircraft, it would have crashed and burned many, many times already (though thanks to the heat, I probably killed millions of germs. So that's a plus).

The faucet head confounds me to this day. I didn't discover until recently that the faucet head could move (making my life a lot easier as I could now target different dishes in my sink since they tended to accumulate). Then tonight I touched the head and the water suddenly went from solid to sprinkler. I touched it again and it went back to solid water. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how I could get it to go back to sprinkler.

So no, my kitchen is not ideal. Its a hodgepodge of things I could scrounge up at the commissary on the relative cheap. Some are brand new and work great, like my sharp knives and Reaganesque pans. Others not so much. It is not a great collective but it is my collective. Nowhere near perfect and starting from scratch- they embody the same qualities I find in my self as I begin my journey. One day, when I'm a master chef, I will find the financing and time to purchase the best kitchen and wares bachelordom has ever seen. For now- my schizophrenic faucet, my depressingly lacking in counterspace kitchen, my small cupboards- will do. Just like my cooking, they will do. We'll stumble and grow and get by. Together. We're the best we've got.

The End.

Tales of the Ignorant, Part 13859

Just told my friend on Skype that I bought a blender but that I didn't know how to make a smoothie.

He sat silently stunned and then hung up.

Bachelor fail.