Team Cooking

The Stupids come as a package.

It's amusing and a bit baffling- both of us are perfectly competent cooks and cook regularly solo and with other people. But for some reason, when we're in the same kitchen, the sparks fly. There's yelling, screaming, profanity, insults, thrown crockery... but somehow, food emerges that's better than what we could do individually.

What's up with THAT?

True, we have some real differences- JD is better at the mechanics and more consistently competent, SY is a bit wilder and has a few more home runs and many more strikeouts. But that doesn't explain it. JD is an omnivore, SY is a vegetarian. That doesn't explain it. JD is a blue collar guy with a pickup truck, SY is a scientist with a Mercedes. Nope, no enlightenment there, either.

I don't know, it's a spooky thing- the first time we cooked together, we seemed to be able to communicate with the verbal shorthand that usually comes from years of familiarity. Now with over a decade of that familiarity, the verbal shorthand has transmuted to non-verbal. An eye gesture at an onion signifying, "You see what I'm cooking here, dice it!" A small twitch of the hand which says, "Not enough salt." A snap of the fingers which says more loudly than words, "Time for another bottle!" It's a good thing, I suppose; it leaves our mouths and speech centers free to come up with deeply personal insults.

We'll figure it out one of these years. And at that moment, we will never be able to cook together again.