I arrived in front of Ayako’s house lugging a hefty amount of baggage. Ayako emerged, took one look at me, and immediately remarked that she should’ve sent Towada to pick me up. I assured her I was fine—the day was still light and I was more than capable of carrying the load.
The reason for all the parcels was the Christmas gifts I’d brought for them. Although I’d tried my best to find things they’d like, I was still a little uncertain about my choices. Therefore, I would give them the presents just before I left their house for the evening.
“Do you have an apron, dear?” inquired Ayako as I stepped inside. “If any sauce gets on your outfit, it’s not coming off.”
“I brought my own!” I replied, extracting mine from my overfilled bag before heading to the kitchen. Towada was absent, having excused himself to run a few errands, Koro in tow. He really did love animals.
Treading gingerly around the little oaties milling about on the kitchen floor, careful not to send one flying, I joined Ayako at the counter. The oven was preheating, ingredients strewn across the dining table ready for processing, and Ayako had donned a kappogi over her clothes. The traditional Japanese apron suited her perfectly.
“Okay, we’ll be starting with the meat sauce. Haruka, can you dice those onions for me?”
“These?”
“Yes. We’re going to simmer them for quite a bit, so you don’t have to go too fine. And the celery as well, please. For the celery, cut them diagonally into thin strips first, then just kind of fan them out and—yep, just like that.”
While instructing me, she busied herself at the stove, melting some butter to make a white sauce. The main dish was to be lasagna, which had surprised me a little since she was an assistant in a French cooking class. But evidently Towada preferred Italian cuisine. That was often the case for boys, Ayako confided with a soft chuckle.
“This knife is so nice,” I commented.
“I just sharpened it, so be careful.”
I swiftly set to work, the sharp knife in conjunction with the recently refrigerated onions making for a tear-free dicing experience. Then I minced a few cloves of garlic and sauteed it and the onions together with some ground meat. Once the mixture was nicely browned, I deglazed the pot with white wine and, after letting it come to a boil, added a can of whole tomatoes, crushing them as I stirred. From there, it was just a matter of letting all the flavors mingle.
“It looks so good,” I said, admiring the rich sauce.
“Here, add this in as well,” said Ayako. She handed me a bowl of demi-glace from the fridge—real, restaurant-made demi-glace, not the canned stuff I was used to. “Make sure you keep everything moving so it doesn’t burn. After that, you can just let it reduce until it’s nice and thick.”
“Wait, this is so authentic!” I exclaimed. “It smells amazing…I can’t wait to try it.”
“Patience, my dear,” she responded with a quiet giggle.
As we stood shoulder to shoulder, diligently tending to our respective pots, laid-back conversation bouncing between us and the fragrance of home cooking filling the house, a sort of anticipatory energy roiled within me, and I was sure Ayako felt the same.
As if to confirm my thoughts, she confessed, “Oh how I missed cooking with someone else.”
“Does Towada never cook with you?” I asked.
“Sometimes, but you know him; he’s not much of a talker—not like Takanori anyway. I think he likes cleanup duty more, actually. We don’t have a dishwasher after all. Besides, it’s faster to hand-wash with just two people.”
In accordance with her words, Ayako’s kitchen was rather minimalist despite the fact that she worked for a chef—she didn’t even own a food processor. When I asked her about the lack of equipment, she simply stated, “What a home cook needs is space not tools.” She emphasized the importance of enough room to do what was needed with all the necessary implements and ingredients within arm’s reach.
Her philosophy made sense. Minimize tasks such as fetching components or tidying clutter, and the cooking process became that much more frictionless, a definite quality-of-life improvement. And after utilizing her kitchen, I wholly embraced her perspective. Once again, I found the notion that Ayako hadn’t cooked all her life unbelievable. Her skill in the kitchen was beautiful to behold, and she had a knack for teaching the craft as well.
When I told her as such, she said, “That’s probably because I had such a late start. Those who grow up doing certain tasks often take for granted the little inconveniences and subtle mechanics that people like me had to learn from scratch.” I had never thought about it like that but could definitely get behind her hypothesis.
Once both sauces had simmered to perfection, we began the delicate task of layering the noodles, sauces, and cheese. We slid the assembled lasagna into the oven to incubate while we focused on the other dishes.
Ayako took charge of the cream of pumpkin soup. She stewed peeled carrots and pumpkin and thinly sliced onions until tender before blending them with milk into a smooth puree. For seasoning, she added a bouillon cube and a dash of salt and pepper.
When I ducked outside to pick fresh rosemary for the oven-roasted potatoes, I spotted Towada returning from his errand. “Hey, welcome back. Thanks for walking Koro,” I called.
He responded with a grunt, his gaze landing on the oatie that had hopped down from my shoulder to say hello to Koro, the two sniffing at each other amicably. I still wasn’t used to that. Koro typically hid behind me when we encountered other dogs, yet he seemed comfortable around the oaties. I wished I could ask him how they appeared to him; I was so curious.