Let Me Cook...

     As the dust settles and the roach population dwindles in the new apartment, my roommates and I have started to get comfortable in our new home. However, I realized today that despite living here for an entire week, I had yet to use our kitchen at all. Granted, this wasn't entirely the product of my own laziness- dirty dishes and rotting food plagued the kitchen for the first few days, and when that got cleaned up, we lost our power for a few days, so we weren't there at all. But now that all of that is out of the way, and my other roommates are either out or asleep, I chose today to christen the kitchen.

    Immediate disclaimer: though I am incompetent in many, many areas of life, cooking is probably where I'm at my most incompetent. This, paired with the fact that I only know how to cook a couple things at all, would later lead to a few mishaps.

The first
pathetic attempt

    Remembering how I would grill some smash burgers with my Dad every weekend, I opted to make some of my own today so I could use a recipe I was familiar with and that had good memories associated with it. So, taking out all of my cooking supplies and groceries from my room to venture into the no-man's land that is our kitchen, I set myself up, cleaned everything, and got to work.

    The first burger was fraught with tragedy, ignorance, and learning. Since I hadn't used this stove before, I was unfamiliar with the heat and so I burnt the burger to a crisp on high heat. At least, that's what I thought, until I cut open the burger... to reveal a raw, pink interior. Oops.

    When my buddy Wade entered the room, he immediately cursed and shouted. Turning around, I had failed to realize that I forgot to turn on the ventilator fan for the stove, and so the entire apartment had been filled with smoke while I was engrossed in my work. We opened the doors of our apartment and to the balcony as the smoke slowly left the room. Oops #2...

    However, after this point I got the hang of things. As I took bites out of the prototype burger, I locked in: making smaller patties, adjusting the heat, and cooking the burgers to perfection. Even though I knew I was an objective screw-up in the kitchen, I felt accomplished. And since I knew Wade was helping me out by cutting up some tomatoes and serving the burgers, it felt like a nice team effort!

    Finally, we cleaned up the kitchen, wiping everything down, throwing away all trash, and clearing our workspace. We sat down on our couch facing the balcony, gazing out into the last of the smoke leaving our apartment. I turned on some music, we bumped burgers, and enjoyed the satisfaction of a meal we earned. It doesn't matter how salty, charred, or smoky everything tasted. 

Accomplishment overpowered any bad taste we would've felt today.