There is something about the kitchen that invites intimacy. I suppose kitchens are a space for intimacy because I will touch with my hands the things that will go in your mouth; I will taste what you taste; I will work for you, or you will work for me. I will make this for you because I love you, because you need it, because you want it.

— Ella Risbridger, Cupboard Love

R makes soul-filling food even when she’s not trying. This passage made me so happy I had to interrupt her cooking (which is a big NO otherwise; she has a zone she gets into, cooking) and make her read.

It is incredible, almost absurdly so (and a cliched thing to bring up), how the simplest of dishes take on levels of delicacy that should be illegal, when gifted people cook. The other month I was having some curdy salad she’d packed for lunch and was certain there was something extralong about the ingredient list till I was told—later—that there wasn’t.

The passage is from an anthology-type book I found at Champaca some weeks ago, called In the Kitchen. The book has some slow-cooking writing. R and I are making our own cookbook. (It is mostly her; I’m picking stock and working layouts.) By next year. Fingers firmly crossed.

This is R outside Jaswant Thada, Jodhpur. That (teaching) trip was a lifesaver. More on that later.