Femme
by Lauren Sarazen

Before I was a wife, cooking was an adventure. I took pleasure in complexity then. Bringing home French cookery books, I’d spend hours decoding instructions in my second language. Time would pass slowly, whisking egg whites into tentative submission and anxiously surveilling slow-simmering bouillabaisse. My meringue would be over beaten and chunks of white fish were outrageously overcooked, but we’d laugh and eat it anyway.