Five Years a Writer

During my master’s degree, I spent two 3-week stints in residency on campus. It was great — intense days of learning extending into the night, and many new friendships forged over the frustrations and thrills of that same learning. I had a private room, a shared bathroom, and a very shared fridge and kettle in the super-minimal kitchen in the common room. While I loved lots about those weeks in residence, what I missed was the smell of good food cooking. We maybe had a microwave in that common room, I don’t remember, but we definitely didn’t have a proper oven in which to bake or roast anything from which would emanate a lovely mouth-watering aroma. Sunday’s supper in this house was supposed to cook slowly, deliver that delicious aroma, and give us a tasty meal to enjoy at the end of the day. It achieved two out of three, with the missing element being, sadly, the tasty meal. I had tried my hand at using pasture-raised chicken to slow-cook in the old fashioned crockpot, but it wasn’t r...