In Short – Issue 5 (Spring 2026)

May 31, 2026

Image credit: The Imagination Sea by Alli Boyd

How to Cook for One

By Titi Kusumandari

Plan: Make a menu for the week. Chop your vegetables, prepare your protein. Arrange them based on color, texture, temperature handling, cooking time; segregate them like they’ll fight for power. Wok, sauté, sear, or broil them. Add the sauces your mother taught you: black soy, sweet soy, fish sauce, and sesame. Ginger. Salt. Pepper. Lots of it. Chop green onions, put them on top, add warm rice you’ve cooked for one. Repeat tomorrow.

Cook and replay: Cook plenty and use for two or three meals. Push yourself out of bed in the morning to rewarm the rice, microwave your sautéed broccoli and black peppered beef. Add a sunny side up, let the yolk run like it’s late for work. Replay for lunch. Make fried rice with the leftovers for dinner. Be brave. Load up on carbs at 9 p.m. Eat like you’re 20 again.

Freeze: Sear like you’re having a party, even if it’s only for you and the late-night show on TV. Remember the Chinese takeaway boxes you forgot to throw away? Use them to store your homemade love. Better, put them in sachets and vacuum them until only void is left. Vitals without pulses. Keep this love frozen in the moment as if rot and time don’t exist.

Blend the taste: Take whatever is left. Lay it all in the wok. Add shredded bread, go crazy and call it kottu. Use barley, couscous, or carrot noodles. Let’s call it fusion. Add plenty of chilies to cover every mistake you’ve ever made.

Go Dutch: Abandon the wok. Eat plain, white bread. Add cheese. Drink milk. That’s cooking for you today.

Make new friends: Put some breadcrumbs on the road and lure your neighbors over for lunch. Bake some sweets and glaze the walls. Let the scent evoke their greed. Feed them ‘til they’re anchored to the chairs. Smile. Lock the doors.

Stop: Wishing your husband would come home. Defrost a bag of his nods from when he was too tired to speak and savor them for dinner.  Stop wishing the phone hadn’t rung and his lunchbox was sent home—never eaten.

Titi Kusumandari (she/her) is from Jakarta, Indonesia, and currently resides in Belgium. Her work has appeared in The Chestnut Review, JMWW, Soflopojo, among others.