I spent six hours in the kitchen that day. Not the casual kind of cooking where you’re half-watching television while stirring a pot, but the intense, focused kind where every minute counts and every detail matters. Six hours of chopping vegetables into precise pieces, peeling potatoes until my fingers pruned, sautéing onions until they turned translucent and golden, basting the chicken every fifteen minutes so the skin would crisp just right, stirring sauces that required constant attention to avoid burning, and cleaning as I went so the chaos wouldn’t overwhelm me.
I’d started planning this dinner two weeks earlier. My family was gathering for one of those obligatory get-togethers that happen several times a year, and somehow—as always—I’d been the one to volunteer to host. Or maybe I hadn’t volunteered at all.
Maybe it had just been assumed, the way gravity is assumed, that I would take care of everything. The menu had required careful consideration. Aunt Carla needed gluten-free options because of her celiac disease, which meant making a separate lasagna with rice noodles.
My cousin’s new girlfriend was vegan, so I’d prepared an entire alternative protein dish and ensured every side could accommodate her restrictions. Uncle George wouldn’t eat anything “too fancy,” so I’d made sure there was plain roasted chicken alongside the herb-crusted one. The kids needed things they’d actually eat, which meant keeping the mac and cheese simple and the vegetables hidden in the marinara sauce.
I’d made lists. Color-coded spreadsheets. A timeline that broke down when each dish needed to go in the oven, when things needed to come out, which burners would be occupied at which times.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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