The Conch Girl Project

Recipe for Annie’s Kitchen: Rose Roll with Green Apple and Bacon with an Fried Egg Base, Sparkling Wine with Frozen Berries

1. A mini kitchen within a not-so-small studio apartment. Everything here is colorful. You recognized a lot of knickknacks from IKEA. In IKEA, colorful items are often for kids, often plastic, and often cheaper.
   
   
2. The storage space extends to the dining area. There is a side-by-side fridge and freezer. You had never seen this form of refrigerator before. It is shorter than the usual ones. It is more like a table, or a working spot, with the cutting board and materials and the pictures above it. 
   
   
3. Strawberry-flavor food everywhere.
   
   
4. A storage rack dedicated to the collected plastic bags.
   
   
5. No drying rack. 
   
   
6. A bag of snacks written “Save for Annie.” Must be a gift from someone who Annie cares, and who cares back. 
   
   
7. A very meticulous storage system, including the dish detergent bottle which is in disguised of a ketchup bottle. It is cheap, practical, and colorful.

1. Annie was very friendly. She said she would retreat into her closet so that you would have the space alone. At first you felt bad for it, but when you got there, you realized the closet is actually as big as a kitchen where she could fit in a desk. Whereas the kitchen is as small as a normal closet. 
   
   
2. The space is full of creative energy. Annie’s works and materials can be seen in every corner. There is also a big window through which you can look directly into the opposite building. You stood there and watched for a while. There is a pilates studio there. It must be good for people watching. It’s funny that you just made a work by taking photos of people’s windows. You were trying to collect the views of “home” so that you can claim some sense of warmth. And now here you are, standing behind one, and looking to other windows again, though not up.
   
   
3. You thought to yourself: the food you make here must be colorful and creative, too. It deserves something like that. But you fell into panic soon after you set this goal: there is not a lot of fresh produce in the fridge, but the variety of pantry entries is big enough to make you dizzy. You also want to make some strawberry-related things, given that she likes this flavor so very much.
   
   
4. Strawberry flavor snacks are all packed in pink. When you were a kid you had a phase that you hated the color pink, as it was the symbol of femininity to you that comes with the stereotype of being delicate and demanding care. You hated that you were assumed to like the color pink just because you are a girl, among so many other assumptions they made on you. But when you grew up you made peace with it. Now you feel a kind of tenderness to girls who like pink. You think it is also precious to be able to love what is given. 
   
   
5. Eventually you decided to make some flower rolls with bacon and apple, and a drink with frozen berries and the sparkling wine you found in another smaller fridge beside the sink. You had never made these before, nor are you a person who drink or make drinks. This also panicked you. You texted the photo of the wine to your friends: do you know how to open this? The “POP” of the cork startled you. You then texted your friends again: do you know how to preserve this? You tried to put the cork back in but it didn’t seem possible. Then one of them texted you back: nah you finish it. Now you really panicked: have you just wasted a whole bottle, if Annie didn’t want to drink this that night? So you poured yourself a glass, too. You hadn’t been eating for hours, and you got a bit champagne drunk at the end of this kitchen visit. 
   
   
6. In this panicked state of mind you messed up a lot of photos, including the one that documents the beautiful flower rolls you made.