Will was fourteen when he cooked his first proper meal. He’d been watching cooking shows on TV, when things were dark, and hard, when he’d had to take some time off school, and there was something in the way the chefs’ hands moved, the slicing of the knife, thunk of metal on wood, things brushed into palms and then the pan that kept him afloat, somehow. Stopped him from going under.
His grandmother noticed. Started leaving cookbooks open on the kitchen side, when he was sure she’d never referred to them before. Then she called him one evening to say she was stuck collecting Amber from school, and could he get dinner on; that everything he would need was in the cupboard.
He read the recipe, twice. Dithered. And then he just…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2023