The lonely kitchen is so quiet that you can hear a pin drop at 5:59 a.m. in the morning. Though it is vacant, it holds delicious treasures hidden in the fridge and the silent pantry. The raw meat is frozen in the refrigerator, the spices stationary and their powerful odors settled in the depths of the cupboards.
As the circular clock hanging on the ghost-white wall strikes 6:00 a.m., there is the feeling of anticipation in the room where so much culinary inspiration has taken place. A woman steps into the kitchen, with ebony black circles under her eyes and yet the graceful hands of a baker. From the woman's arms to her fingertips, her appearance expresses the tiredness of an overworked mother but also the experience of a connoisseur. Dressed in her floral pink robe and soft sleeping shoes, the woman turns over to the sink.
She grabs the sparkling, silver faucet smelling like oranges from cleaning it yesterday with Lysol, and turns it on. The mother places her hands under the fierce rushing water and washes them with green apple colored soap. After she is done, she fixes her hair into a tight bun. Then, she sets the light in the kitchen dim. The mother wants to be able to work with integrity on her culinary works, but she also wants her privacy and the ability to secretly admire her art. Then, the woman walks up to one of her best friends: the stove.
Her thin hands reach for a pan she stores in the stove; she turns on the flame, pours oil into the pan, and gently lays down a raw, scarlet meat on it. In moments, she begins to create a fusion of pleasurable odors. As the meat crackles over the roaring flame and releases an aroma of strong seasoning, the woman pours eggs with yolks as bright as the sun onto a pan over another flame on the stove.
The woman reaches into the deep end of a cupboard and pulls out one of her secret ingredients: oregano. They are miniature, shredded pieces of a leaf, but a leaf that holds secret qualities, those that make one savor every experience of tasting a cook's platter. She sprinkles a bit of it on the meat as it sweats its last beads of flavor on the oily pan over the fire. Next, she takes out a transparent saltshaker made of crystal-perfect glass. She pours minuscule grains of salt on the yolks, not too many, but just enough to make her eggs on the stove as glossy as a newly bought wine glass.
Just as the meat finishes browning on the pan and absorbing the oil on it like a sponge soaking up water, the eggs finish turning burnished. The woman inhales the smell of her final products. As she breathes in, strong scents of salt, seasonings, and memories of the past come in through her nostrils.
Suddenly, she imagines herself as a young seven year old in her mother's house, what she used to call a mansion. She finds herself standing on rough, red brick floor in an old-fashioned kitchen in the middle of Mexico. She looks around and sees a pitch black, worn out stove, and a person that she had seen every day of her childhood that had the graceful hands of a cook . . . it was her mother.
As the woman returns to reality, she finds herself back at her kitchen, in front of her shining white stove, looking down at her cooked eggs and meat. They may not be the quality of a real chef's dish, for one of the eggs is a little burned on the edges and the meat may be missing a tinge of seasoning. However, her lips curl into a gentle smile as she remembers her mother again and for a final time, she breathes in the glory of her cooked food. She grabs a gray spatula from the marbled counter top at her side, reaches into a cupboard for a plate bordered with floral designs, and serves her meat and eggs onto the plate. This, she decides, is her talent; the art of cooking is her life.
