1.? I have been obsessed with cooking since I was a child.

When I was a child, I was a greedy girl. Although I was picky about food, I was always very interested in what I ate.

For example, I didn’t like eating eggs since I was a child (a large part of the reason is that the eggs made by my mother were really unsatisfactory), especially hard-boiled eggs. When I was in elementary school, I went to a classmate’s house to play, and the classmate cooked them. I cracked an egg into a bowl of instant noodles, and after a while an amazing aroma wafted out. From then on, I couldn't forget that bowl of instant noodles.

When I was in elementary school, I read a lot of composition books, but I don’t remember them now. I only remember one composition that mentioned the methods of candied haws and boiling sugar syrup. Moreover, I also practiced it with my classmate at that time. I made rock sugar apples at her house. The result was very good and the bottom of her pot even stuck.

Later, whenever I was watching TV at home on weekends, I would watch cooking programs on the Education Channel. When I got interested, I started tinkering around at home and cooking a few dishes by myself. Of course, there are many dishes in cooking shows that require various seasonings. At that time, my family only had oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar. I couldn’t cook many dishes, and I was too lazy to buy them. Besides, the food market was not rich in supplies at that time, so I only had I can try to make some home-cooked dishes.

However, I always get praise from my parents when I do this. I don’t know whether it was from the senior grade of elementary school or the beginning of junior high school, but my father always let me start cooking, intentionally or unintentionally. Until I entered high school and lived in school, I rarely did anything by myself.

2. Because I like cooking, I also attracted a husband who also loves cooking.

Before going to college, restaurants were not popular in our area, and even the New Year treat was done at home. Burnt. After I reached high school, I only ate food from the cafeteria. The food in the cafeteria is occasionally better than what's cooked at home, but after all, it's a big pot meal, so it's not likely to be any better. Even though I watched a lot of cooking shows, I had no concept of good meals, so there was no way I could improve my cooking skills.

But it’s different when you get to university. There are so many cafeterias in the university with all kinds of delicious food, and there are also all kinds of delicious food outside the school.

Suddenly, I was like a mouse falling into a rice vat. Then another rat was attracted, my husband.

We have often had meals together since college. Although his taste is very different from mine. For example, he only eats main meals and will never eat snacks as meals. Another example is that he prefers to eat meat and I prefer to eat vegetarian.

But as we both love to eat, we feel an indescribable sense of satisfaction when we eat together even if we don’t talk. What's more, we always study various delicacies. We will watch how the stir-fry chef makes a plate of tomato scrambled eggs; we will guess together how to make a delicious plate of boiled pork slices. We will comment on which restaurant has the best food, and we always have endless things to talk about when it comes to food.

Maybe it is because of this that although we always quarrel and break up for various reasons, we can still bump into each other until now, and it has been more than ten years in a flash.

3. ?A home full of kitchen utensils and tableware

After getting married, especially after owning our own house, the two of us bought kitchen utensils and tableware (especially my husband) It was out of control. As of today, I specifically ordered them yesterday. We have 18 pots of various sizes at home, not including the rice cooker and several pots that were eliminated in the past.

There are countless condiments available at home, including Japanese, Thai, and Sichuan. Although now I can’t eat spicy food because I have children, and many spices have become just decorations, it still can’t change my husband’s habit of buying spices.

Although my husband and I both love cooking, we are different. As a contradictory combination of being lazy and hard-working, we each have our own characteristics. For example, his laziness is manifested in his willingness to cook a meal only occasionally, but his diligence makes him willing to spend a lot of time, meticulously use several pots, and divide many processes into making a dish; my laziness is manifested in more I like to cook simple home-cooked dishes and would rather not cook dishes with complicated processes, but my diligent part is that I am more willing to cook every day.

Because of my high demand for good food, during the years when my two mothers helped us take care of our children, there were constant frictions surrounding food. This also became the reason why I wanted to quit my job and become a full-time housewife. One of the reasons is that apart from the dishes he cooks himself, the only thing that makes my husband satisfied with his food is the dishes I cook.

Now, I cook my own meals every day. Not only do I love it, but my husband and children are also satisfied. This is the happiness that I could not feel before resigning. The so-called gains and losses, I am afraid this is the truth.

Although my husband is still very picky, and although my son cannot eat eggs and tomatoes, there are fewer dishes to cook, and he has to rack his brains to change the dishes every day, but in the hard work of matching, it is difficult to complain about them. While serving, I discovered that my heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment and happiness. In fact, this may be the case for people. The things they were most interested in when they were young can often become the source of happiness in their future lives.

Therefore, although I gave up a good salary to become a housewife, and although I now have to worry about the expenses, such happiness still grabs me and makes me stay in this position and enjoy the beauty of life.

Maybe one day, this beauty will bring me more happiness and beauty. I'm looking forward to it.

(Note: Some dishes with eggs were made before my son was diagnosed as unable to eat eggs. After he was unable to eat eggs, we still occasionally made them for ourselves because there were still a lot of uncooked eggs in the refrigerator. )

I am Beni, a Japanese translator who loves writing and painting.