James' Tiny Kitchen
James had 11 square metres of kitchen.
He'd measured it on moving day, partly out of curiosity and partly because he needed to brace himself. Eleven square metres. One sink, one hob, one oven, one fridge that was slightly too large for the gap it lived in, but far too essential to question. A single drawer that jammed when it was humid, which in a British kitchen meant most of the year.
He loved cooking. That was the cruel part.
He had the good knives. The heavy boards. Olive oil in three varieties because he'd read enough to know they weren't interchangeable. Herbs in small labelled jars, a pestle and mortar that had moved with him four times and would move a fifth. He had the kitchen of someone who took food seriously. He just didn't have the space to prove it.
Everything lived on top of everything else. The jars lived on the board. The board leaned against the wall because there was nowhere flat to put it. The oils occupied whatever gap wasn't already taken. Getting dinner ready felt like an excavation — moving things to reach things, putting them back in the wrong place, starting again.
He put up three reclaimed timber shelves on the only wall that wasn't already spoken for. Simple hanging brackets. Warm, oiled timber, the kind with a bit of history in the grain.
The herbs went up first. Then the spice jars. Then the oils, standing in a row for the first time since he'd bought them. The chopping board finally came off the counter and found a hook on the wall.
He made pasta that evening properly, without moving six things first.
It tasted the same as it always had. But he stood a little straighter, making it. Because a kitchen that works for you feels different to one you're always working around. And sometimes that's the whole difference between cooking and just feeding yourself.
