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I remember spending summer at my grandmother’s house, swinging back and forth in her hammock, the breeze flying through my long hair. Back then there were no doubts, problems or melancholy threatening to cut it short. I can still hear the birds singing, signalling the day had only just begun. The cat was meowing, happy to have finally found a home. I can see the hills, oh so alive, fruitful and green; can hear the little drip drops of rain, falling onto the roof. 

Instead of cold, the frosty summer air just made me feel alive as I lay on my hammock, eating the first arepa of that day’s batch. The melted cheese stretched as I tore the arepa in half. Abuelita was cooking more arepas in the kitchen and her singing voice carried all the way up the stairs. It blended with the birds’ chirping, becoming the most wonderful melody. My arepa almost finished, I now can’t help but think, I wish it was summer all year long. 

— — —

I am sitting at the dinner table, but my appetite has long since disappeared. We have had rice with lentils for three weeks in a row — or at least that is what it feels like to me. My little sister must be pretty happy, I think, as I continue to push my stainless-steel fork back and forth, back and forth, slowly dismembering my lentils. She loves rice and lentils. Could eat that all her life.

I stare at my half empty – or is it half full, I can’t seem to decide – plate. Lentils and rice used to be my favourite food as well, but it has long since grown stale. Now it’s just boring, monotonous. Every day in this house is.

I can’t feel my surroundings, can’t hear their voices, but I can definitely feel their stares, all surrounding me. I can hear their judgement. I try to silence it and listen to the radio playing in the kitchen, which my mother once again forgot to turn off (or maybe she is also trying to avoid these conversations, actively searching for an excuse not to listen to what’s been said, what has been said before, and the ramifications past words still leave, many dinners later). 

But her old-fashioned love ballads are not loud enough to distract me from this dinner. So, I stay there, sitting upright. Powerless. They don’t try to engage me in their happy conversations. They know better, I guess. But oh, this cold, stale, unhappy house is tearing me slowly apart, I think, as I tear apart my lentils, slowly. One by one. I’ve long since lost my appetite.

— — —

I can hear her singing along to the salsa on the radio. I can smell the overpowering aroma of chillies in the air. It takes the whole house by storm, not leaving a single room intact nor person unaffected by its palpable fragrance. Some people see a park, a church, a restaurant or even just a street sign, and know they have made it home. I do not need any of those artificial sights. I do not need to stumble upon anything at all. Abuelita’s cooking greets me as soon as I open the door.

— — —

“We are approaching an area of high turbulence. For your own safety, we kindly request you keep your seatbelts fastened.” The plane starts to tremble slightly. I look outside the tiny oval window as we go up and down, up and down. Flying has always been a great fear of mine. I am not a bird — I do not thrive up in the air. Nevertheless, here I am. All on my own, flying thousands of miles away from home to university. If I wasn’t already terrified from the heights, the thought would have definitely made me so. 

“I am not even half-way there yet and I am already homesick…” I mutter to myself as I reach towards the grocery bag hidden deep inside my backpack. I unravel one of the packages wrapped within, one plantain leaf at a time until the tamale is revealed. I slowly start to dig in, its familiar taste blurring all of my surroundings, until the only thing in my mind is Abuelita’s last words to me at the airport:

“It’s not that I don’t trust you to feed yourself well, mi vida. I just need you to know that no matter the distance, I will always be there to take care of you.”

— — —

In the past few years, my breakfast has always included the one staple dish: “avocado toast” (which is way too fancy of a name for bread with avocado, in my opinion). While my bread of choice is always changing — from sourdough, to rye, to a baguette, to whole wheat — what’s spread on it remains the same. Fresh avocado. So, my first morning at university, that’s what I try making in my flat’s kitchen. But something goes wrong. There is nothing to taste. No matter how much I toast my bread, or how much salt and pepper I add (which I have never needed to put on my bread with avocado before). I look at the label and suddenly it all makes sense: Avocadoes grow in warm weather. In the cold, they just grow stale.

— — —

She’s dead. I still can’t believe it. She’s dead. Dead. We are all sitting at the table. Her table. In her living room. Without her. The place that used to house the best parties. Where music would never stop. A home where we felt we could dance all day long without ever growing tired. Now it’s all gone. All the magic. All the flavour. She took it all with her. Nobody knows how to cook like she did. She never told us the secret ingredient to her recipes. Never told us how to bring a bowl of soup to life. Now, it’s too late to ask. To beg. To bargain. We are sitting around the table, drinking soup that tastes bland, unflavoured, bitter.

— — —

I set down the bags of groceries I have just bought and start putting them away. After a few minutes, all that is left are the ingredients I need for my Arroz con Pato. Or “Rice with Duck,” as the online recipe calls it (doesn’t have the same ring to it, though). I chose that dish because it contains no chillies, meaning I did not need to scavenge through the streets in search of such “exotic” ingredients. Cilantro is the main seasoning used and, luckily, my local supermarket had it in tiny plastic bags labelled “Coriander.” I check my phone, looking through the months of short, empty conversations with my then-sick grandmother. I wasn’t able to tell her with words how much I loved her then, but hopefully making this dish in her honour will be enough for her ghost.

— — —

My apartment is only on the building’s second floor, but I feel miles up in the sky, floating through the air like a bird who has finally learned to fly. The rumbling of the cars beneath me is usually difficult to ignore, but not tonight. No, right now, the most catastrophic crash could happen, and it would only be a whisper in a faraway land, a glimmer in a dark night. I check Abuelita’s recipe notebook again. It had taken months of looking through her belongings, but I had finally found the small leather-bound book. The cursive handwriting is almost illegible but clearly drawn with so much care and love. Next to me, one pot of fragrant rice is bubbling on the stove; two others are simmering. Smells I never thought myself capable of recreating, of chillies and spices, take over the kitchen. Even though I am not with her anymore, my tiny apartment finally smells like it should have done all along.