Chrisonomicon

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

He's standing right next to me, doing something productive in the sink, and so I move over a little because I'm wielding a hefty silver blade about the size of my forearm, dicing tomatoes, although not very deftly -- the peel somehow remaining defiantly intact under my relentless slicing. The big grand-daddy of a relatively new set of German knives, the blade is razor sharp, having a name that reminds you of weathered, stocky German cooks with broad, tanned faces who make marvelous things to eat and are always scolding you in heavy German accents with a thick, wagging finger (but only because they want to see you do right) and I'm wondering how they managed to dice these damn things without resorting to some sort of nuclear device.

Earlier in the day, I'd gone to buy groceries in the face of an impending whiteout. Colorado weather is annoyingly, ridiculously fickle (and I wonder if the reason I feel such animosity is because it reminds me of myself) but recent storms have managed to last for days covering the state with an enormous amount of snow and so I took advantage of the early signs to head it off and make for groceries. A five-mile drive down the interstate and the car parked in the store lot, the snow had stopped, the sun was smiling and a bluebird landed miraculously on my shoulder, which I quickly swatted off with this cook book I bought last month that plans your week in advance, complete with a pre-week shopping list. It's great. No more last-minute, Dorito-Twix-Totino's impulse purchases, just your simple old-fashioned staples for some traditional home-cooked meals.

And so here we are in the kitchen. It's all so domestic -- M washing potatoes while I mangle the goddamned tomatoes -- and I'm wondering how the hell this happened when, after all, I've always been like Colorado weather, never managing any kind of interest in a guy for longer than two or three months (those stocky German cooks wagging their fingers at me) and, sure, maybe the storm will lift any time now but the more we're together, the further and further into the future the forecasts stretch, gradually immobilizing us in the drifting snow, and I shrug and look over at him and we smile and make small talk and he tells me he loves me and I hand him the knife to finish off the tomatoes because I'm sure I'm getting carpal tunnel.