Cooking for the neighbors
Wiping sweat from her brow, with hands triumphantly on her hips, Arya looked down at her counter. Plated and pretty, she completed the final recipe for her cookbook, her dad’s manti recipe. Armenian dumplings, smothered in a stewed tomato sauce, topped with strained yogurt and brown butter. The earthy cumin fragrance and the sharp scent of sumac lingered in her apartment. Her neighbors have grown quite used to the smell, and the deliveries coming from Arya’s apartment these past few months. At least twice a week, she heads to the Fausto’s apartment, decked in her wildly Jackson Pollack-ed apron, with a bit of fresh bread, baked goods, and sometimes full meals, when her feverish day of cooking ends. They are always grateful, and even give her honest feedback when she asks. Every recipe, and “Fausto feedback,” is recorded in her little black notebook: very used, with sauce and grease stains on almost every page. She bought that book the same day she lost her job, two months earlier.