The Conch Girl Project
Recipe for Jacqueline’s Kitchen:
Eggplant Sauce
06–10–2023
Ingredients
- A huge step of modern hospitality: Jacqueline helped you connect to their bluetooth speaker. You now have total control of the audio experience here.
- Everything in the fridge was singular: an onion, an eggplant, a box of grape tomatoes, a 2/3 of mango, another 2/3 of yellow pepper.
- Plurals: “party pills” on the top, and skin care products by the fridge door–the goal here is fun, glamor, and care, 3 in one.
- The smallest sink you had ever worked with.
- The kitchen is small, but there are a variety of tools and kitchenware, and relaxing scenes of green.
Steps
- After briefly greeting you, the three residents left you alone in their kitchen. It was an afternoon in early summer, the green outside the window was matching the green you were wearing. Make a note in your mind to enjoy the scenery from time to time.
- Inspired by the many different kinds of pasta in the space, you decided to make a sauce. Won’t go wrong with the fast pace lifestyle this household harbors. Making this dish also utilizes the oven, the blender, and the pan–you feel obliged to activate as much as what you had been kindly offered.
- Towards the end of this visit, the residents started to come back. Make sure to visit the yard sale spot they recommended you to.
Jacqueline’s Response
Honestly, I cannot believe our tiny place looked (and still mostly looks) like that. It makes me proud and reminds me of the challenge of appreciating beauty in everyday moments. I liked how you made similar mental reminders in your notes.
One thing all of us, Liv, Isabella, and I, wanted to ask was if you were at all surprised by how barren our fridge was. It didn't occur to me to provide ingredients for you to cook with, and we all were at the end of our groceries for the week. Sometimes, the fridge is overflowing; sometimes, it is like how you found it, in which one person (Isabella) has a few meager supplies that have outlasted the others. We are all curious to know how you honestly felt when you opened the fridge. What you ended up making was delicious and went well with toasted pita.
Other things to share: I put the skincare in there at the beginning of moving in, but they have never been used. It's one of those things that now feels wrong to move or touch because it's been there for so long. The party pills aren't drugs (like drugs drugs), but they are and always will be mysterious. I waited until a tier three level of having to pee before opening the door and moving through the space to the bathroom. I didn't want to ruin the surprise/interrupt your work. I liked having you in the apartment; it was close but distant. The day felt special.