Chapters thus far

By: Angel Perdomo

Some of the most quotidian –and yet, precious– items in the daily rituals of the author for the last 10 years.

A decade ago I found myself lost, lacking any direction or reason to go on. I had just turned eighteen and had no aspirations, nor the energy to have them. I languished in bed for months basking on my own self-pity on a never-ending binge watch of TVshows, films, anime, and books to keep me from thinking too deeply. I remained in this state for a year, wallowing in my boredom, losing complete sight of myself in the process. 

Growing up I was always a quite articulate and well-spoken kid, but this changed during that year. My mother was the first one who noticed I could not speak properly during this period, struggling to string thoughts and sentences together, along with my inability to remember things. I was nineteen when she signed me up for English classes. A completely random decision, the point was for me to do something. Thus, I reached the end of my depression arc…kind of. After a year of barely interacting with people, my ability to socialise and speak took some time to recover.

I remember those first bus rides, I remember the intense desire of wanting to run away and hide, how observed and exposed I felt each time I walked down the aisle towards the back rows. Headphones were a lifesaver; a little wall to allow you to ignore the outside while outside. 

Languages were never my thing. I was especially bad at English at school, but there I was taking classes, using 120% of my brain to catch up to the class level while trying to not have a panic attack, of which  I discovered their existence during this year. Anyways, after a summer of classes and many Disney films (I watched Mulan Over 10 times), I got better at English. I still could not properly hold a conversation in English or in Spanish, but my anxiety was lessened and as long as I had my headphones, I was mostly okay.

Around this time I turned twenty years old, so time was up. I needed to do more with my life, so I chose to become a chef. This was not for any concrete reason; I had no particular affinity for cooking, but it seemed like the kind of profession that always has jobs available. Part of me also found it amusing to reflect on the irony  of a chef starving to death. So cheffing it was.

The school I applied to held interviews as part of their selection process, and I wish I could remember what was said, but the reality is that I can’t recall anything besides how focused I was on not losing the plot and the conversation; at this point in time my ability to hold conversations was still quite poor, even in my native language of Spanish, I would at times go completely blank and forget why I was even there. I made it through the interview, and my bum arc ended. I was now to be a gastronomy and culinary arts student for the next two years.

Although I chose being a chef without much thought, it turned out to be something I quite enjoyed. Cooking, from my point of view, is something that blends art and science;understanding the process of why something tastes and looks delectable was something truly enriching for my spirit.

During these years I met Richie, my true and only friend. Richie is that extrovert friend that forces you out of your shell and makes you go places and do things you would not do on your own. I had my first beer, shot, bar crawl, gaming night, and other social canon events most young people go through. After two years, we were done with culinary school and ready to take on the real world. At this point I had become a lot more confident and was fluent enough to have a B2 in English, so for my apprenticeship I went to the UK as an Erasmus student.      

My UK arc lasted six months: I was to work and live in an old beautiful manor from June to December of 2018. There I spent my days working, mainly making tiny sandwiches for afternoon tea. My quarters were located in the cosy Gardener’s Cottage. There I lived alone for the next three months, eventually with some roommates. They were forty-year old men who traveled around the country working temporarily at different hotels.

As a young twenty-two year old I struggled to relate to my older co-workers, whose main troubles were their wives, children and mortgages. Eventually I met Sophie, a girl around my age who introduced me to drinking Earl Grey tea with a splash of milk, and the concept of a five-minute fag break. Sophie would make us a cup of tea and we would then go out and smoke and talk. She often talked about her boyfriend, how they met, what they did last holidays, how her mother kicked her out of the house so they were now living together. Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes and felt how in love they are? She was living the life, and I was rooting for them. I kept up with her for a couple years after I left the UK, and the last time I checked she had stopped cheffing and was working at a call centre or something similar. They also got engaged, and if all went as planned, they should be married now. From my stay there I developed a taste for tea, which I still drink everyday, but I did stop smoking.

28th of December 2018. I woke up in a hotel room in Manchester. I went across the street to the nearest Mcdonalds and had their egg and bacon muffin sandwich with hash browns and a cup of coffee –my last meal in England. That same day I was back home in Tenerife. 

2019 was a fantastic year, my English had drastically improved, and although as a chef I had not improved at all, I quickly found a job at a restaurant specialised in Canarian food with a modern twist. Working in a restaurant was challenging: a lot more to take in, a lot more to track, a lot more pressure. None of these things matter much when I remember how fun the creative process was. There was only another chef in the kitchen besides me, Brian.

Brain was very talented and willing to teach me. My main responsibility besides the ones you can expect from a cook was to bounce ideas with him back and forth. We proposed ideas for dishes, planned effective ways to serve them quickly, and tested the ideas. That same year an opportunity to go to work in Austria was proposed to me and Richie. I started taking German classes paid by the company that was offering us the job. In the end, due to several issues regarding paperwork, I did not move to Austria. I was supposed to leave the country, so my position at the restaurant was filled ahead of time, which meant I had no job at all. Luckily, I had saved up enough money to not have to worry too much and there were plenty of jobs available. I spent that year working temporarily at different hotels, and then 2020 arrived. 

For most people, 2020 was an extremely difficult year. In my case I had the fortune of having one of my better years. Yes, the imaginable happened, I was a chef who was going to starve to death but I also had a chance to do something different. I spent the first half of the year studying to get into university, and I made it. My family and I burned through most of our savings, but we were all healthy, and we all learnt to get along better. 

During the next four years, I read, wrote, did exams, made presentations, grew to like some people, learnt to despise others, fell in love with the love of my life, then fell out of love with the love of my life, and ate more pasta with cheese than is healthy.

Now it is December 2024. I am living alone in Barcelona, I finished my degree and now I am a functional member of society working for a tech company—I would describe what I do, but an NDA prevents me. It is not something fancy, the job is an easy office and pays well. The mind numbing monotony of the job is offset by the people I work with, as we spend hours working and talking about random things like how AI will take over all jobs, or how it will save humanity, or we entertain imaginary business ideas that we will probably never attempt.

As I write this I am sipping on a cup of Earl Grey with a splash of milk, a burrito I have meal-prepped waiting to be eaten in the fridge. Now I am trying to come up with some grand final conclusion to wrap up things nicely. The reality is that I have been stumbling my way through the last decade, and what kept me from falling was food and people. I have never lacked either, and for that I am grateful.