Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen

Cooking in New Jersey on a thundering Saturday afternoon while my sister Jen ran out to have her nails done. This is always a challenge, where do you find the right containers, the right spices, the knives, and the lemon you need? Jen loves to load me up with cooking lists, and we share this in commmon, a love of all things culinary. Jen has an advantage over most: She owns a catering company with a bulging larder we can steal from if we need something.

This trip to NJ is to catch up with my father Nat who is going under the knife for a melanoma on his nose, and to meet Steve, who is Jenny's new boyfriend. Funny that we still call it that after so many decades, who could possibly be a boyfriend in his 50s....but that's what we say. No one has come up with a better term, and I refuse to call him her lover or her paramour, so boyfiend will have to do.

I hope to find the lemons and a good knife and finish the guacamole before Jen gets back. It is nice being back in the place where I grew up, little Blawenburg NJ.