Long before the bedroom, there is the kitchen
By no means am I a chef or culinary genius, but I am a lover. I'll pick the playlist, I'll pour the wine and I'll dance with you and prepare the snacks while the oven preheats.
It is the kitchen where many of us first come to know love and where love means to feel full, thought of and considered.
Love looks like a homemade meal after a long day. It sounds like "have you eaten yet?". It remembers your dietary requirements without being asked. It buys your favourite fruit because it happened to be in season. It slices apples and oranges when you're sick, makes tea before you realise you're cold, and saves you the last dumpling.
You can learn a lot about someone by the way you kiss, dance and cook together - in that order. The choreography of two people cooking together will reveal infinitely more than any first date can.
Who asks before adding salt?
Who trusts the other to watch the pot?
Who notices when the other needs another pair of hands?
Who rushes to plate up and who lingers in the process?
Who asks for what they want?
The kitchen has its own way of bringing our relational patterns to the surface if you look closely enough.
Perhaps that's why the kitchen is such a good teacher and why some of the best lovers are also great cooks.
Being in the kitchen allows us to loosen our grip on getting it right and instead become attentive to what's in front of us. Rather than clinging to a recipe or rushing an outcome, they both remind us that presence is a necessary ingredient for a good time and this requires us to slow down and trust the process.
It is in the kitchen where we learn to ask for what we want. We practice making requests both ordinary and profound, we practice taking up space and we practice the giving and receiving of it all.
In these small interactions, we learn that what we want matters whether it's specific dietary needs, just a pinch more salt or some wild and sexy fantasy. In this way, the kitchen is an invitation for intimacy, to witness and be witnessed. The inherent rituals of kitchens from the food prep to the clean-up show us that intimacy takes time and is rarely to be rushed. It is built through repetition, attention and the willingness to stay just a little longer.
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