Our First Cooking Adventure: Bonding in the Kitchen

I am a fiercely solitary cook. It’s been a flaw of mine my entire adult life, and yes, it has caused many fights with exes and a mother-in-law. I didn’t care; if I was tasked with cooking something, no one better step foot in the kitchen. Otherwise, they were getting a splash of cold water from the sink.

I guess it’s a control thing, it has to be. It just sends me right into space when I’ve got a pot that’s about to boil over, and I just need to step away for a second to grab something from the fridge, and then I find that someone is in my way! It throws off the whole choreographed dance I’ve got going, and I lose it.

And yeah, I know that professional chefs don’t act this way. They have to work elbow to elbow, throwing around terms like “behind!” and “hands!” to make sure that they’re all working together in unison. But I’m not a professional chef. In fact, I realized that I never wanted to work in a kitchen again after getting fired from my first line cook job.

When I lost that job, I moved in with my sister, Jenna. It wasn’t something that either of us wanted, but we both needed it. She was getting fewer hours at the grocery store she worked at, and I had only a few catering jobs here and there that barely got me to the end of the month.

Jenna and I fought a lot about money, but it wasn’t so much that she was blaming me for not having a job. We both knew that it was a hard job market, and I think she was just disappointed in me for not trying harder to make the line cook gig work.

I didn’t tell Jenna immediately when I signed up for a sugar dating website. I wanted to go on a few dates myself and just see what it was like before I talked to her about it. I did tell her that I was going on dates, so that she would know where I was. I just didn’t tell her where I met the guys.

I had already been dating Nico for about a month by the time Jenna saw the two of us at a restaurant near where she worked. We made eye contact through the window (my eyes were normal-sized, hers were the size of dinner plates), and I knew that we would have an argument when I got home. But I didn’t say anything about it to Nico, and we carried on with what was a very lovely date.

As I expected, Jenna was waiting for me on the couch when I walked through the door. She told me that she knew exactly what I was doing and how I was suddenly able to pay for rent and groceries. She said that I should have told her exactly where I had met these men so that she could have been keeping better tabs on me (I’ll give her that.)

“But mostly,” she said, “I’m just sad that you thought you couldn’t tell me. You have such control issues, Chrissie, that you don’t let people in when you need them.”

I knew she was right, but it wasn’t part of our sister dynamic to admit it in the moment. I flung back some half-hearted comeback about how she was too busy with her new boyfriend to care what was going on in my life. And then I went to my room.

I was supposed to see Nico again in the morning for breakfast and a walk around the lake, and he could tell that something was up. I had thought that Jenna would be over being mad at me by morning, but she left without saying goodbye.

I explained what had happened with my sister and what Jenna had said about my control issues.

Nico asked if I thought Jenna had been right about the control thing. I had to admit that, yes. Sometimes I had a hard time letting people in my personal business, and my personal space, for that matter.

“It’s something that I’m trying to change about myself,” I told him sheepishly.

“Ah, that’s interesting. What steps are you taking to change it?” The question was posed without any judgment, but it felt like a gut punch.

“Oh, woof,” I laughed nervously, “I didn’t think you were going to ask for receipts.”

Nico laughed, “Sorry, I do a lot of business coaching and one thing I’ve learned is not to take people’s words over their action plans.”

I could feel myself getting annoyed at being challenged by someone who was supposed to be my stress-free sugar daddy. Not my mentor.

“I don’t want to overstep,” he said. “But I’d be happy to help you brainstorm some ideas if you’re really looking to make a change. It can be small steps, nothing too life-changing. Nothing you’re not comfortable with. What’s one thing that gets you really riled up that you wish you could just let go of?”

And so, I told Nico about my disdain for cooking around other people and how that had led to my quitting.

“Woww, okay, so it’s more serious than I thought. It’s keeping you from doing something that you’ve told me you love to do. Just having people around you in the kitchen makes you not want to cook?”

All I could do was shrug. It sounded very immature when it was explained like that.

“Okay, but the good news is, I think there’s an easy fix for this,” Nico said. “I have a friend who owns a restaurant that closes on Sundays. We could schedule our next date there, and I can annoy you endlessly while you cook me an omelette. You know, like exposure therapy.”

I was already annoyed by the idea, but I agreed. What could it hurt?

It turns out, Nico is very good at being annoying when he wants to be. He was constantly getting in my way when I would go back to the fridge to grab ingredients. When I asked him to hand me something, he would move at a snail’s pace. Or give me the wrong thing. Or simply go off on a tangent about something unrelated.

And normally, I would have been livid. But because Nico was clearly playing around and being terrible on purpose, I wasn’t nearly as angry as I would normally have been. In fact, I was having fun. He let me fake scream at him and give him gentle shoves out of my way. I stomped my feet. I pretended I was going to spank him with the spatula.

By the time the omelet was on the plate (and trust me, it was the ugliest omelet I’ve ever made in my life), we were in stitches.

I asked him if we could do this every weekend.

And we did. Not only did we start to see each other on Sundays, but sometimes Nico would come to my place (my sister wanted to meet this mystery man who was making our lives easier and putting her sister in a better mood), and during these occasions, in my cramped kitchen, Nico would call Jenna to be part of the exposure therapy.

“Jenna!” he would call to bring her out of her room. “Hurry, Chrissie is about to make a bechamel, and she tells me it requires constant attention. I need your help to distract her!”

Over time, I got used to the constant antics, and it honestly made me a better cook. I was able to focus under pressure, and always with a smile on my face. And I started getting better at giving Nico his own tasks, partly so that he couldn’t focus all his attention on thwarting me.

After a few months of this, as I plated up a gorgeous quiche that I had made despite Nico’s best efforts, he told me, “I think you’re ready to get back on the line. Look at this dish. Look at how cool you are under pressure now. No amount of distractions or invasions to your personal space can keep you from creating something delicious. What do you think about the progress you’ve made?”

I took a bit of the tart and knew that he was right.

“You know,” I said, “You could make a living out of coaching people.”

Nico laughed, “I do. Now it’s time for you to do what you’re good at, too.”

I ended up getting another job on the line at a different restaurant, but Nico and I kept seeing each other. And we kept our Sunday dates, which had become a special ritual for us both. Every once in a while, I complain about my coworkers, but I always know that I can deal with them. Thanks to Nico.