How many spoons does a woman need?
On day one, I ripped apart a packet of durum wheat penne pasta to cook with some white mushroom sauce. It's an easy recipe; easier if you have boiled pasta handy, which I did not. So I took a pan, added the beautiful penne pipes and ushered it into the waterfall of hot tap water. I added some salt with the teaspoon and well, took out another spoon to add precisely 2 spoons of oil. Swirled the whole thing once with a large spoon (spatula?). While my pasta was boiling, I took upon the depressing ordeal of cutting onions. Onions are like childhood trauma, you grow up and think you'd finally be over it because you are no longer a sissy child but then you smell your fingers and they reek of this pungent odour. I cut the onions and wash my hands, twice. I also got some (read, six large cloves) of garlic and some mushrooms, obviously. It's in the title of the story. You don't play Macbeth, without Macbeth.
Now, I don't want to go all Victor Hugo because that would make my recipe the equivalent of French sewers in the context. I cooked up the pasta, it tasted really good. I am the greatest chef of all time. The glory lasts for 16 minutes, past which I have to face my mortal enemies, dirty utensils. Here's the catch, when you are cooking, and it can be the simplest of recipes, you'll obliviously forget the count of dishes you used. It's a trap you set up for yourself. I have walked right into it so many times. Yet, every single time, I walk down the same path and deal with it. It is not because I like doing that, or that I'm a moron, it's simply because there are battles in life that can not be avoided. Win or lose, they are yours to fight. Well, for most of us, from a capitalistic point of view. That is a grandeur way of describing the task of dish-washing but what is life if not a desperate exaggeration of boring things following one after the other.
So, I filled the sink with utensils and water and proceeded to clean them one after the other in the correct order of smallest to biggest. I took all the spoons, 5 in total (or so I thought) and cleaned them nice and clean. I saw my cheeky upside down smile in the shiny concave mirrors and decided to wash the pan next. Only to find, another spoon inside the pan. The count is preposterous considering I made one serving. For myself. To eat alone. If I could sue spoons, I would.
One would think that I am complaining about having too many spoons and the ordeal of washing them, but dear reader, these spoons haunt me. I sleep dreading to face their slender monstrous bodies every single morning, I am tired of deciding what to cook, what to eat or to figure out an equation to reduce the use of utensils in my kitchen. I don't hate them, I bought every single one of these tiny demons with my own hardearned money, I cherished them when I first saw them and for a few days after. The hatred came gradually but in large quantities, you couldn't fit my annoyance on a teaspoon, you'd need a bowl.
At first, I welcomed these new members, helped them get assimilated into the surroundings by putting them in the same holder as the one I use for knives and spatulas. It was fun. I miss the old days of novelty. As a child I often wondered why my parents didn't like spoons as much as I do, or my sister does, she absolutely adores them. I have the answers now. Spoons, like birthday cakes seem to have a depreciating value. Unlike birthday cakes, they don't have an olfactory appeal. In words close to my lovely Wordsworth,