“I haven’t even finished breakfast yet, why would I possibly know what I want for dinner,” Jeff said when his wife, Jamie, asked him, like she did every morning, the million-dollar question.
Jeff sipped his cup of coffee and watched his wife take out what looked like a package of chicken (or was it hamburger?) from the freezer and dump it on the kitchen counter. He put his half-eaten bowl of cereal and coffee cup in the sink and quickly grabbed his car keys. He knew that they’d both ignore the question and the answer that would still be facing them when they got home nine hours later. Therefore, before Jamie reminded him that he could take over the food preparation duties “at any time,” he thought it would be best if he just got in the car and went to work. He didn’t want to have that argument with her again.
It’s not that he didn’t do some of the cooking, it’s just that the shopping was getting more and more difficult. In the past, whenever he’d come home with something that Jamie had put on a shopping list, he had been yelled at. “Why did you buy a package of chicken for $15?” she’d ask him. If he said it’s because it was on the list she gave him, she’d nod, but then say, “Yes, it’s on the list, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy it at that price!”
When Jeff got to work, he headed to the office kitchen to make himself another cup of coffee. He remembered the first day he started working for this publishing house, nearly five years ago, when a former colleague gave him a tour of the building. The colleague (who had since left for a more lucrative position) had sarcastically mentioned the “fringe benefits,” and pointed to a box of generic tea bags, chemical creamer and jars of instant coffee.
Jeff didn’t realize until he was about six months on the job how poorly the company was doing financially. And because of the no-frills kitchen amenities, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he walked into the office one day only to find out that the company had gone bankrupt. Still, he showed up every morning, as did his fellow workers, and tried to publish books they thought readers would like to read - even if they didn’t really like the topic, or the genre, or even the writing. Early on, Jeff had brought in an old stainless-steel percolator he found in his mother’s basement that he plugged in every morning. He also brought in some store-brand ground coffee too, and usually just made a pot for everyone to enjoy.
Making the coffee that morning, he suddenly remembered the crock pot meals his mother used to throw together. Usually, it was just a chunk of pork or beef with a can of tomato soup or cream of mushroom soup that somehow would become gravy, and that would be dinner. He and Jamie didn’t own a crock pot, but he did remember at some point they had owned a pressure cooker. He knew he had left the house that morning in a bad mood and his wife was probably angry at him as well, but he decided to text her anyway.
“Sorry about this morning,” he typed. And then he sent her not one, but two heart emojis.
He waited for a response, and he got a smiley face, albeit one with sunglasses on. Did that mean she was having a sunny day? Or did it mean she had been crying on her way to work and needed sunglasses to hide her red eyes?
“Do we still have a pressure cooker?” he texted. Thereby, eliciting a big question mark from Jamie.
“If we do, I can make a chicken curry for dinner,” he texted again. “Or did you take out hamburger?” he asked.
He kept looking at his phone and wondered if she was looking for the middle figure emoji to send to him. And then he wondered, if they did have a pressure cooker, where was it? Jamie hadn’t responded yet, so he just went over to his cubicle and sat down for the day. He looked through some emails and sales figures when his phone pinged.
“Hall closet behind the step stool,” Jamie texted. Followed by an emoji for what looked like a flame and a chicken leg.
It was nearly 6:00 p.m. when Jeff walked into the supermarket after work. After Jamie realized she was being relieved of kitchen duty that evening, she had sent him a list of other things that they’d need to make a real curry. Apples apparently, as well as some scallions, fresh ginger and heavy cream. She said they had all the other spices, but could he also pick up a container of milk so they could have pancakes in the morning. And bacon would be nice, too. Oh, and if he wanted to drink white wine with the curry, he’d need to get some since they only had red.
After she had sent him that list and three heart emojis to go with it, Jeff was feeling relieved that not only was it Friday night and they had the weekend to look forward to, but his wife’s attitude towards him seemed to have improved. Should he get her flowers, too, he wondered?
He hurried through the store buying the things they needed and drove home. Jamie’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, and Jeff was happy because he thought she’d appreciate him making dinner. He knew that his wife prided herself on being a great multi-tasker. But some days he’d come home and find her already prepping dinner with her coat still on, which both annoyed him and made him a bit depressed.
Jeff parked the car and brought the groceries inside and started unpacking everything. Then he went over to the closet Jamie had mentioned and saw the pressure cooker sitting in a box. He picked it up, took it into the kitchen, pulled it out of the box, and rinsed out the pot. He grabbed the chicken that he guessed Jamie had put back in the fridge before leaving for work. It was still frozen in the middle, but he figured what the hell, eventually it would be done. He opened the package and dumped the chicken into the pressure cooker and wondered whether he should have browned the pieces first.
Screw it, he thought, quickly peeling and dicing up the apple he had bought. He added that to the pressure cooker too.
He heard his phone ping. “On my way home,” Jamie texted.
“Don’t put the apple or the cream in until the chicken is cooked,” she continued.
Jeff looked into the pot and started pulling out pieces of the apple he had tossed in.
“Only onions and the ginger,” she texted again. “And water, obviously.”
Jeff knew that a good chicken curry takes a while to make. He wondered if he used the pressure cooker, could he do it in under 30 minutes? Jeff remembered hearing that a lot of people were deathly afraid to use a pressure cooker. Was it the hissing noise? Or the threat of having the pot blow up in your face? He had a vague childhood memory that his mother had a pressure cooker that exploded all over the kitchen once. But he doesn’t remember how that happened or even the mess, so maybe it wasn’t as serious as he remembered? Then he wondered, is that why the crock pot was used instead?
Jeff added some canola oil to the pot, the curry powder and garam marsala, along with some garlic cloves that he quickly peeled as well as the ginger. He knew he probably should have grated the ginger, but he thought this would work okay too. He was suddenly thirsty, so he went over to the fridge and reached for a beer. Could he put beer in the pressure cooker instead of water, he wondered? Jeff knew that Jamie said not to forget to add the water, but wouldn’t beer be better? He took a sip of the beer and then grabbed another one and opened it. When he poured it into the pressure cooker, it started to bubble nearly to the top of the pot. He waited until the foam went down and then he added about a cup of water to the pot and then lined up the lid to close it.
He turned the stove burner on high and made sure that the vent on the top was attached correctly. It didn’t seem like it was since it kept spinning around but maybe that’s what it was supposed to do? He didn’t know since he didn’t remember using the pressure cooker much. Jeff stood there looking at the burner for a while, drinking the rest of his beer, when he gradually heard a hissing sound come out from the top of the pot. The hissing kind of sounded like he was on one of those old steam engine trains, which was a bit strange because he didn’t remember ever being on one. And then he remembered that old David Bowie song that he kind of liked, Station to Station, where the opening sounded exactly like the sound the pressure cooker was making. He figured this is what it was supposed to be doing so he went into the dining room to set the table. But then he got distracted when he put on some music and the TV at the same time, plus his phone was ringing.
After taking a robocall confirming a dental appointment for next week and eyeballing the weather forecast on TV, he suddenly heard David Bowie singing Changes, that old 70’s song that was recorded ten years before he was even born. This he thought was very strange, especially since he had just been thinking about him. Then, right when he was about to sing along with Bowie, Jeff heard the smoke alarm go off in the kitchen.
He knew that the quickest way to get the alarm to go off without having to stand on a step stool to extract the batteries from the device was simply to open all the windows in the house. So that’s what he was doing when Jamie walked in.
“Having a problem?” she asked.
Jeff looked at her and hoped the chicken wasn’t burnt. He went over to the pressure cooker and slowly tilted the vent on the top and let some of the air escape.
“Be careful,” Jamie said.
Jeff nodded. He waited another minute, then slide the top off the pot and looked inside. The chicken wasn’t burnt but it had absorbed all the liquid.
“Smells good,” Jamie said.
“I put beer in too,” Jeff said.
Jamie peered into the pot and nodded. “Add more beer and water, it should come out okay. I’m going to take a shower,” she said.
Jamie did as he was told and sealed the pot back up. He sliced up the scallions and took out the heavy cream and realized he had forgotten to make some rice to go with the curry. He opened the kitchen cabinet where they usually kept the rice only to find there was less than half a cup in the container.
“Shit,” he said.
Jeff grabbed his phone to look at the shopping list Jamie had texted him and was relieved to see that rice wasn’t on there. So, it wasn’t his fault. Or her fault either. No blame game tonight, he would make sure of that.
Jeff opened a bottle of wine as he heard the shower running in the upstairs bathroom.
He turned off the TV and set the dining room table. He looked at the table and now regretted not buying flowers after all. What did one of his co-workers tell him once about coming home with flowers on a non-special occasion? Are you cheating on me, his co-worker’s wife had asked. Jeff remembered asking the guy what he said. “I didn’t say anything, I threw the flowers in the garbage!” Jeff remembered thinking that was a bit cruel but whatever, it wasn’t his argument or his wife.
The pressure cooker started to make a loud hissing sound, so Jeff decided to just turn the burner off. He tilted the vent on the top again and saw the steam escape. He must have zoned out watching the steam because he jumped when his wife touched the back of his shoulder.
“Guess what,” he said.
“What?”
“We don’t have enough rice,” he said.
Jeff caught the beginning of a frown on Jamie’s face which quickly dissipated when he saw her reach for a wine glass.
“Naan?” she said, pouring herself some wine.
“I didn’t get any white wine,” he said.
“This is fine.”
“You can put the apples and the cream in now,” Jamie said.
“Where’s the naan?” he asked.
“Freezer.”
Jeff nodded. “Would you have liked some flowers?”
“What?” Jamie started to laugh.
“I wanted to get you flowers but I didn’t.”
Jamie shrugged. “That’s okay.”
Jeff undid the top of the pressure cooker and added the apples and the cream. He stirred everything around a bit and turned the stove back on low.
“You know that David Bowie song, Changes,” Jeff said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you like that song?” he asked.
“It’s an old song,” she said.
“I know, but do you like it?”
Jamie shrugged. “I guess, why?”
“What about Station to Station?”
“Isn’t that the song that sounds like a train in the beginning?”
“Yeah, that one.”
It’s okay,” Jamie said.
“It reminded me of the sound the pressure cooker is making,” Jeff said.
“Can you close all the windows that you opened?” Jamie asked.
And when she winked at him a bit, he wondered if they should just go up to the bedroom and eat the curry later. Apparently, Jamie thought so too, because she turned the stove off.
“I like Modern Love better,” Jamie said to him.