i got you It was 8pm on a Tuesday night in 2015, and I was walking through the home goods section of TJ Maxx (the American retail equivalent of the Garden of Earthly Delights). It was two days after Easter and this was Hieronymus Bosch's land of shopping anarchy. The shelves were lined with pastel-colored objects that may or may not be useful. A bag of popcorn with an assortment of green and purple fruits. A giant tub of millennial pink Himalayan crystal salt. Somewhere among these novelties, I found an inadvertently abandoned gadget called the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker. The cashier who called me didn't share my enthusiasm for the cheerful cheekiness of the package, which proclaims, “You can perfectly cook six eggs at once!” Confused, she asked me a question. The answer would be perplexing to anyone other than me: “Don't you know how to boil water?”
No, it wasn't.
And at 22 years old, not only did I not know how to boil water, I didn't even know how to light the stove. Now, these may both seem like knowledge gaps that could easily be fixed with a 60-second trip to the kitchen, but you see, I didn't have any knowledge gaps.
Early that morning, I finally moved into my first solo “apartment.” A basement in the garden of a Manhattan brownstone lent to me by its absentee owner. Instead of a real kitchen, it was equipped with a mini-fridge. Hot plate and microwave. That evening, after a long day of unpacking, I sat on the front stoop of the building munching on a bag of discounted Cadbury Mini Eggs. And after spending 20 minutes wandering around unable to believe where life had put me, a series of shocks hit me. Earthquake-sized sobs. But it wasn't the misery that left me empty, it was the relief.
At 22 years old, I not only didn't know how to boil water, I didn't even know how to start a stove.
In 2013, I left my old life behind and moved to New York, the promised land for stunted young people fleeing responsibility. I spent my childhood, teens, and early adulthood obsessed with dreams of an imaginary future where I lived alone, my only ambition in life. In these painstakingly detailed fantasies, the greatest luxury I could imagine was having my space and free time all mine and mine alone. In these visions, no one snatched the “story book” (a euphemism for an Indian parent who loved even reading adult novels) from my hands, or stood up every time a guest came to visit. No one barked at me to make tea or begged me to make tea. He takes the hot roti from the stove and places it on his father's or uncle's plate. The environment in which I was raised tried to instill in me the idea that maintaining a home and the associated domestic labor (cooking, serving, mopping, mopping) was a highly noble act. They are crucial to the formation of the only life I am destined for, pre-packaged with a husband and children, and that the two species are equally self-sufficient. I was warned that I would not be able to provide for him and that his supervision would be left to me.
In rebellion, I refused to learn any of the tenets of good housekeeping. Even if I'm useless in the kitchen and horribly incompetent at household chores, at least I'll still have some control over my life. And no amount of yelling, scolding, or humiliation from parents, elders, or concerned strangers will shake me from this enthusiasm.
But during this teenage rebellion, I never once thought about what I would do if this long-held daydream came true. I had forgotten that actually living on your own as an adult requires you to develop some basic skills that you have avoided developing. Yes, I finally became the king of a territory without a kitchen. But what was he going to eat? Cinnamon Toast Crunch and rubbery takeout every day, forever? That night, I paid the skeptical cashier $19 for the spaceship-shaped device and took it home, but so far… I felt my first doubts begin to emerge, even though I had always been a belligerent against domesticism.
I had forgotten that actually living on your own as an adult requires you to develop some basic skills that you have avoided developing.
As the name suggests, the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker is a device with one purpose: to quickly cook eggs. In those rare cases when reality matches advertising slogans, they are certainly perfect. I followed the instructions and started by placing just one egg and pouring in the few inches of water needed for cooking. Through the magic of steam and electrical engineering, Dash magically created eggs of the ideal consistency in less time than it took me to brush my teeth, wash my face, and apply acne cream (thank goodness). (There was a toilet in).
As French chefs of various nationalities and incompetent bachelors have attested, mastering the perfect egg is the gateway to complete culinary mastery. Delicious eggs are suitable for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between. Delicious eggs are the foundation for bigger culinary ambitions. You have mastered the most difficult basics among them. Delicious eggs are the beginning of complete self-sufficiency. Because it is a meal in itself and an accompaniment. On that April night nine years ago, dizzy and drunk with my own invincibility, I ate something I had “cooked” for myself for the first time. It was a soft-boiled egg cut neatly in half on top of supermarket bread. I whipped together cold salted butter and thinly sliced red onions.
Up until then, my life had often felt like a cobblestone of accidents and gambling. That pure white soft-boiled egg, its semi-liquid contents rolling on my tongue, was the first time I felt like I had actually earned it myself. I still didn't know how to boil water. I had a job that paid me $30,000 a year, which was still more than I ever imagined.
More importantly, I finally — finally — The only thing I really wanted was independence and my own time.
Iva Dixit This is the editorial staff of the magazine. She's previously written about the joys of eating raw onions, Sean Paul's enduring popularity, and why Oppenheimer is for girls.
