Eggs are romantic. Food is romance.
“Made with love” is not a taste.
It is repetition. Micro-decisions.

Nuanced ingredients.
A culinary fingerprint.
Of which there can only be one.
Of the one you love.

Butter or no?
Milk? A dash, a pour, or nothing more?
Stainless or iron?
Whisk or fork?
Folded or stirred?
Salted? When?

Questions answered in the moments between cracked shell and passing lips.

The answers become texture.
The texture becomes memory.
The memory becomes longing.

A false twin answers the questions.
Close. But not perfect.
And so we remember.
Memories flood in.
Emotions flood out.

A kitchen. A laugh. A voice. A person.
Food is one of life’s romances.

Not because it feeds us.
Because it preserves us.

Small pieces of those we love, hidden in habits so ordinary we never notice them until they are gone.

And when the days run out, we find them again.

In butter.
In salt.
In eggs.

In all the little questions that were answered exactly the way only they would answer them.