Another journal entry

*Yeah, I journal about cooking*

 

Cooking again. Allowing the kitchen to take me over. I become a ghost within it. A whisper within the cacophony of sizzle and spice. I listen, but do not speak. The food does all of the talking, and it does so in a language that I barely speak. I catch a word here and a phrase there. I try to piece together the conversation, but it often eludes me.

When does the sizzle become a scream for help? Where is the border between perfectly caramelized and irreparably burned? Where lies the boundary of a meal that teases and excites the taste buds before it falls into a meal that passes without notice? When does fork tender turn into mush? These are the questions that the food is trying to answer for me, if only I could understand.

If only I could decipher the slang, then I think that this would all click into place, and a master of the kitchen I would become. Perhaps it is simply a matter of spending more time with the locals. Perhaps all that is required is an inquisitive mind and a supreme amount of patience.

If that is the case then I worry that I will never become that master, as I seem to so rarely have the time to dedicate to learning this language. That I will forever be the cook who speaks broken English.