2002-01-01 - 5:36 p.m.
Happy New Year!
It is the beginning of a New Year and a time renewal. SIGH...I feel so much better already.
Well, Grandma, it looks as once again you are right. A warm kitchen and good food will always help mend the spirit. Today it was a traditional Chinese dinner. I started cooking in a kitchen that was as cold as could be. See, we went to the home of our friends in hopes of mending a very important and productive relationship with them. I was afraid that the cards were stacked against it though. There we hurt feelings aplenty, plenty of miscommunication, and even a fair helping of misunderstanding. And this is a recipe for disaster.
So I dug deep and tried something to help the healing process to begin. I cooked. Now granted it was not my kitchen, but I still invited my friends to join me and help cook a feast that I am sure we will remember for years to come. Especially since I caught the wok on fire at one point. Hehe...big flames in fact. At one point when I was walking the wok outside I remember hearing someone ask if I was all right. I heard myself say that everything was under control. I thought about how cold the fire felt compared to the forge. �Gee this isn�t hot at all. Hmm, I think have been hanging around the forge too long.� That wok fire must have been more than 500 degrees...but when you compare that to the 3000 that I can get from my forge, I guess it was really kinda...cold. (On a side note, I think it was the best thing that I could have done for my wok, cause now the patina on it is superb.)
Needless to say when all was said and done...after the kitchen had been trashed, and the food was finished and on the table, the collective mood had also been lifted. And this brought joy to my heart. In fact my wife and friend are now in the kitchen cleaning, and chatting merrily, and this makes me smile. Grandma, your were right. I don�t know what magic was worked in the kitchen today, but it worked. Thank you. I just wish you were still around so I could tell you.
To my friends, I also want to say thank you for not giving up. It would have been easier to just turn away in anger and walk away, but you didn�t. I hope that our friendship grows stronger from this. As different as we are, as different as we think, I still feel that we have one of those friendships that you only read about in books.
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