Friday was a 'flat dinner' night. It was my turn to cook, so I made us a chicken, mushroom,
chickpea, and coconut curry – also known as ‘Whatever I Have in the Cupboard Curry’
– with other things like tomatoes and mango chutney and peppers and ginger and yoghurt
thrown in. I made it with rice mixed with coconut and olive oil, lime
juice, and toasted almond flakes and – while I was keeping an eye on all the
bubbling pots – I sent the girls to fetch some vegetable pakora
from the Indian takeaway at the bottom of our street.
Pretty tasty. When it was all ready, we put the twinkle
lights on and helped ourselves to spoonfuls of it, chatting about graduations and upcoming weddings
and the-disaster-that-is-Brexit, and then took turns washing up.
The shared meals in this tiny Glasgow flat – with their feeling of ‘togetherness’
– have been among my favourite things about staying here.
Joined by our not-actually-a-flat-mate friend, we each take turns
cooking and have eaten some amazing food over the year: shepherd’s pie with cheese on top that’s turned bubbling and golden
around the edges; black bean and sweet potato chili; tartiflette (a creamy, cheesy, potato-y French dish with
bacon); smoked salmon fish pie with parsley sauce; pesto pasta with smoked
sausage and mushrooms; macaroni cheese. In December, we even made a pre-Christmas
Christmas dinner. It took about 2 hours longer to prepare than we’d planned (turns
out peeling, chopping and par-boiling takes a lot more time than you’d think), and two members of our ‘party’ had the flu so they slept on the sofa while Rachel and I cooked – but
in the end, it worked out quite wonderfully and we both felt rather proud of
ourselves.
Eating dinner by myself is something I’ve learned to get used to this year – being a
single woman living independently, it’s kind of a regular and necessary part of life. And I don't think there's anything wrong with eating alone. It's fine. It can be quite peaceful: taking my time, savouring the flavours, winding down from the day without needing to chit chat between mouthfuls. But –
there are days when mealtimes carry with them a very keen sense of absence.
There are days where I can’t shift the feeling that there is something just ever so
slightly depressing about ‘dinner for one’. I find myself hoping it won't be the reality of my life forever.
Whatever life will bring, though, I want
to be intentional about building in times in the week for
eating-together. Because there is a different energy that comes with a meal
shared. 'What’s becoming clearer and clearer to me,' Shauna Niequist (author of Bread and Wine: a Love Letter to Life Around the Table) writes, 'is that the most
sacred moments, the ones in which I feel God’s presence most profoundly, when I
feel the goodness of the world most arrestingly, take place at the table. The particular alchemy of celebration and food, of connecting people and serving what I’ve made
with my own hands, comes together as more than the sum of their parts...'
Yes. That is it.
Hooray for those sacred moments.
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