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Above The Stove
I remember reading this cookbook about how muggles used to over-spice their rotten meat because they didn't have spells or machines to preserve them. Now, of course, muggles use feridginators to keep their meat fresh, but apparently they poured pepper on them before.
I also remember how much I laughed after reading it, because I, a wizard, used to do sort of the same thing. Except, you see, not with spoiled meat, with barely-cooked meat. My mother's always said that you should never let a house elf near your food and so when I was younger, she used to cook for me. Except, you see, she's a terrible cook, and she always undercooked the meat—the inside was always cold. I'd get in trouble if I didn't eat the stuff, so I used to dump all the spices I could find on my chicken and steak to make it more bearable.
Now, when I'm at home, I do all the cooking. I've read countless cooking books, muggle and magical alike, and I cook everything as close as I can to perfect. At first, when I'd make really fancy meals, my mum would smile and congratulate me and say how proud she was (and how it worked out after all even though I was a boy), but after a while she just said thank-you, and then a bit after than she just ate without a word to me. But I've never minded, I understand. It was the same with me. At first the spices sort of hurt my mouth, and made my throat itchy. Then they just had a sort of tangy flavour. Now I can barely taste them at all, and I over-spice everything. In the back of my mind, I still know I'm eating loads of spice, just like how she knows, in the back of her mind, that she's proud of my cooking.
There was a time, before I cooked and before my mum cooked, when I was really little, that the house-elves cooked our meals. I don't really remember that time at all, except I'm not about to forget it either. Arontius was my mum's second husband, and he was poisoned. Two days after he was poisoned, he died in St. Mongo's. It was a real shame, because it was right after a big photo-shoot my mum had finished, so she got some bad press, and all her interviews were filled with depressing questions. I don't really remember Arontius at all, except I can't forget him either, because his picture is hanging above the stove.