A notebook with a few splashes on it.

I’m Arun Kolian. I cook at home, write down what worked, and ask everyone at the table whether there was enough lemon.

Our Raleigh kitchen is small enough that two people need to negotiate around an open drawer. The table is close to the window, the measuring cups live on a hook, and the good wooden spoon has a flat edge from years of use. I like kitchens that make their habits visible. You can tell where someone reaches without looking.

From memory to a page

I began the notebook after trying to explain a favourite dinner to a relative over the phone. My directions contained three different bowls and very few numbers. Writing the recipe down did not take the feeling out of it. It gave me a place to keep the feeling beside the useful details: which pan, how much water, what to do while the onions soften.

Not every meal earns a page. Some are simply dinner, and that is enough. The ones I keep tend to be forgiving dishes with a few memorable choices. The Sunday lentils are here because we have made them in enough seasons to know what belongs in the pot and what can change with the contents of the fridge.

A family-sized corner of the web

Arun and this household are fictional, created to give a small cooking notebook a specific voice and a place to live. The recipes and stories are written at a personal scale. The kitchen page is the front of the notebook; the margins are where its character lives. I like a meal that leaves room for conversation, a second helping, and someone offering to wash the pot.

A note from the margin: the smallest bowl is for the lemon wedges. If it is missing, someone has probably filled it with pencil shavings again.