Alone in the Kitchen with Some Garlic

Merry Christmas, all, or Happy Solstice, or whatever it is you celebrate. This year my sister, an excellent picker of books, bought me one called 'Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant', a collection of essays by marvelous writers on the topic of cooking for one and eating alone. In these essays, having dinner by yourself is by turns depressing, lonely, or heroic; it's a last resort, an act of independence, somehow subversive, always a temporary state of affairs until someone else comes along with whom to share your meals. And sure, it certainly can be all those things, but can't it also be, boringly enough, just ordinary? Solitary meals have been a fact of my existence ever since I graduated college nearly three and a half years ago and moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan for my first job. I imagine they are the norm for a good chunk of my peers, as we tend to marry later than our parents often did and thus have a longer stretch post-college living and eating with no one but ourselves and maybe a pet turtle to keep us company.

So I've spend nearly as long at this point eating by myself as I did with a gaggle of friends in a dining hall, and, at least after the first month or so of acclimating, it's never felt like a statement or a burden or an accomplishment, just a meal. I eat probably as many meals that way as I do with others, certainly nearly all my breakfasts, many dinners, and a good number of lunches, on my own at the kitchen table with a magazine or on the couch with the turtle watching from across the room. And I don't mind it at all.

So what do I cook when I'm cooking for one? That's a major question in the book, and nearly every author has their own special recipe, like single-girl salmon or saltines with salsa eaten over the stove, or pickles and ice cream, or rice and beans every night, or anything so long as it's beige. Me? I cook everything. Most things I've written about here I've cooked just for me. I make sandwiches with tomato and tapenade, and sandwiches with tomato and olive oil, and sandwiches with bacon and cheddar and onions and apples on seeded rye. I make spaghetti with sauce from scratch or out of a jar. I cook elaborate stews or rice and beans. I defrost a veggie burger. I stir-fry noodles, make my favorite Szechuan tofu dish, or scramble an egg. Sometimes I make ramen, sometimes larb. I put garlic in nearly everything. No need to (depressingly) divide every recipe by four, I cook big batches and eat leftovers, since there often isn't time to cook something new, and when I get sick of something I freeze what's left for another time. Sure, I have my idiosyncrasies, as every eater does. I'm more likely to eat tapenade for breakfast than cereal, since I believe that delicious food is delicious no matter what the time of day. I oversalt, since that's how I like it. And in a refrigerator with three kinds of soy sauce and ten kinds of chili paste, you'll find no peanut butter or mustard whatsoever. There is always maple syrup, mostly for putting in tea, and there is quite a bit of tea. But I suspect that when I do move in with someone and start cooking for two or more my fridge and my cooking will look much the same, maybe with the addition of a bottle of mustard beside the soy sauce, if god forbid I marry someone who likes mustard.

It's not that I don't enjoy cooking for other people – I've got friends in many zip codes who will attest to my enthusiasm for throwing elaborate dinner parties. Making food for someone is absolutely a way to express caring for them, and it's ever so satisfying to get the compliments and see them empty plates after a day at the stove. No doubt. But should I not care for myself the same way? I like good food, and being alone for dinner is no reason not to eat it. Takeout gets pricey, and besides, I enjoy cooking. I like walling into a kitchen, working with my hands, and creating something delicious out of disparate parts. And while I'm cooking I'm not doing schoolwork, which is also often necessary, for the sake of my sanity.

And then there's always the question of eating alone at restaurants, something which seems to intimidate or depress even those brave souls who happily cook for just themselves on a regular basis. But why? Grabbing lunch out on my own is another bit of normalcy, and taking myself out to dinner is a singular pleasure. I can go somewhere fancy and order wine and dessert and not feel like I'm pressuring someone else to spend more than they want. I can take my time and linger over a cup of tea or eat and run, depending on my mood. I can order the polenta for an appetizer, the pasta as a main, and a side of potatoes, and have nobody but the waiter notice my carbofeast. Or order two appetizers, because that's what I feel like. If I waited for someone to be free and willing to join me every time I wanted to go out, my wallet would be fatter but I'd have missed out on a lot of good meals. (The same goes for traveling, but that's another essay entirely.) I always bring something to read, so I'm not sitting there twiddling my thumbs between when I order and when I get my food, but I usually don't read while I eat. There's never been any pitying looks or snide remarks, and it's always easier to get a seat at prime hours if you're alone. I'm not sure why people so strenuously avoid being a party of one. Maybe they think it makes them look lonely, pathetic, friendless. Well, if you're sitting there moping into your food, it probably will. But otherwise all it does is make you a person who enjoys a good meal and is willing to treat yourself well enough to go get it. Which sounds like not a bad way of life to me.