"Can I use this?"
A grunt from the window.
I take that as a yes.
I do not know what I'm doing.
Before all this, I ordered takeout. Ubered my groceries. Ate lunch at my desk and dinner at book events and breakfast never,because coffee counted as a meal if you drank enough of it. The sum total of my cooking knowledge comes from watching my grandmother make pierogi when I was seven and a brief, ill-advised attempt at meal prep that ended with me setting off three smoke detectors and ordering pizza.
I could ask to use his phone and look up a recipe like a normal person.
But I want to do this myself—a thank you for last night, even if he won't accept it as that.
People cooked before the internet. Entire civilizations rose and fell on the strength of their roasted meats and root vegetables. The Stone Age didn't have YouTube tutorials, and they managed fine.
I can manage fine.
The box of books sits by the armchair where I left it. Crouching down, I dig through—a history of the Roman Empire, a book about fly fishing, a Tom Clancy with a cracked spine. A few romances shoved in the back, probably for when the wife visited. At the bottom, half-buried under a water-stained copy of Wuthering Heights, my fingers find something promising.
The Hunter's Guide to Outdoor Cooking.
Close enough.
I flip through while the tenderloin sits on the counter. Venison. Elk. Wild boar. A whole chapter on squirrel preparation that I'm going to pretend I didn't see. Finally: "Preparing Large Game Cuts." The instructions reference deer, but meat is meat. Probably. The fundamentals should transfer.
Season generously. Salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary. Sear on high heat until browned on all sides, then finish in the oven at 425 degrees. Rest before slicing to let the juices redistribute.
I can do this.
Twenty minutes later, the kitchen looks like a crime scene.
Salt everywhere—on the counter, the floor, somehow on the ceiling. Garlic in uneven chunks because I couldn't figure out how to mince it properly, the cloves sliding out from under my knife every time I tried to cut them. Rosemary more stem than leaf because I stripped it wrong, little woody bits mixed in with the needles. Kindling, basically. I'm seasoning the meat with kindling.
And the tenderloin itself.
I tied it with kitchen twine because the book said to, something about "maintaining shape during cooking." Found the twine in a drawer with fishing line and duct tape—old hunting cabin supplies, left behind by whoever owned this place before. The twine wouldn't cooperate, kept slipping and bunching, and now the roast looks less "professional preparation" and more like I'm holding it for ransom. One end is bulging out of its restraints. The other is cinched so tight it's turning purple.
But I seared it. Got the cast iron screaming hot, nearly set off the smoke detector, and somehow managed to brown most of the sides. It's still on the stove, finishing the last side while I work on the sauce.
The garlic is not cooperating.
I'm concentrating so hard I miss when he stops making noise at the window, miss him moving.
"Eden."
I spin around, knife in hand, heart hammering.
He's in the doorway. Arms crossed, shoulder braced against the frame, surveying the damage. His eyes move across the counter—the garlic carnage, the rosemary kindling, the salt I somehow got on the ceiling.
"I'm fine."
"Didn't say anything."
"You're judging."
"I'm observing."
"Your observing looks a lot like judging."
