I enjoy cooking. I do. I like having a reason to cook, making a list of the ingredients I’ll need, going to the store and buying those ingredients, seeing which of those ingredients have any coupons I can apply, and so on. It has to be said, however, that the cooking doesn’t always go the way it’s supposed to. Usually it’s not a problem because I’m either cooking for just me, or for me and one other person who cares about me and really doesn’t care what I cook or how it turns out. Where I have absolutely no confidence is in my ability to cook food that actually looks good. Good enough to serve to others, perhaps in a dinner party type of setting. I just don’t know how to present the food, how to serve it, what to serve it in, and ultimately how to make it look like more than a sad green salad and a pot of soup, for instance.

Remember that book, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter? Yeah, I never read it either. Supposedly it walks you through those things you're better off making yourself (nutrition-wise?, cost-wise?, complexity-wise?) and those you should just get at the store. Since I didn't read it, the only piece of advice I took away from it was what I gleaned from the title. Even that has taken years for me to implement, but among my list of culinary items to tackle in 2022 (including lasagna, bread pudding, homemade pasta, and a bakery-worthy layer cake) is to make bread.

There's a framed picture on my bedroom wall of a group of people ice skating in Central Park. It's a print actually, a creative artist's depiction of a whimsical and vibrant city. The people are thin, colorful, their limbs like sticks that dangle in front of or behind them as they glide along the ice. They are bundled, wearing scarves and jackets, a cityscape of buildings towering behind them.