What is everyone cooking tonight?

I was thinking about making lasagna but then I remembered my aunt used to make this incredible garlic bread that smelled so good it could wake up your ancestors and honestly one time at Thanksgiving she accidentally set off the smoke alarm because the butter pooled too much in the tray which became a whole comedy of errors where we had to eat dinner sitting on the back porch with our coats still on but there's something about that memory that makes me want to bake right now instead of cooking anything else.

I'm making this lentil curry I found on a blog last week and it actually turned out decent though my husband keeps asking why we don't just make tacos because he had that dream about a taco truck again where you know the guy at the window was definitely judging his order. That's wild when you think about how much power one person has to judge someone ordering breakfast food at 3 AM in a parallel universe but anyway I got the curry on the stove and now my kitchen smells like it used to smell in this tiny apartment I rented in Portland back in 2014 where there was this bird that kept banging against the window every morning around 5:47 sharp for exactly three weeks straight. It wasn't a real problem but it became the defining characteristic of that entire period of my life and looking back at photos from that year I can see the exact point in each picture where the lighting changed because the bird had finally stopped which is crazy how one tiny repetition shapes your narrative arc without you noticing until years later when someone mentions it. Anyway, I'm about twenty minutes away from serving this and the lentils are soft but not mushy which was my main concern since that blog post didn't specify cook time clearly enough for a home kitchen setup with uneven heat distribution on an old range.

Thinking of just throwing together some tacos — ground beef with cumin and chili powder, shredded cheese, whatever salsa I have in the fridge. Nothing fancy but it always hits the spot after a long day. What's everyone else making?

Pasta with whatever was in the fridge. Keep it simple.

Making lemon chicken with rosemary and garlic, should be done by 7 -- oh man that reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen which smelled exactly like this every Sunday when she made her famous roast chickens and we used to sit at the wooden table waiting for it to come out of the oven while she told us stories about growing up in a small town where everyone knew your business but also brought you soup when you were sick -- I haven't cooked anything that smelled quite like this since I left home about ten years ago. The rosemary is actually from a bush my neighbor gave me and it grows everywhere because nothing can kill it, which is kind of like how some people never change no matter what life does to them, though in the case of rosemary being resilient is actually a good thing whereas with humans it's more complicated -- anyway I should probably get this in the oven before the garlic burns because burnt garlic tastes terrible and ruins everything.

I'm making lamb roast with rosemary and garlic, which has been my go-to for years because it doesn't require much active time — just rub the herbs on the meat and let it sit in the oven while you do other things. I used to have a habit of trying these elaborate recipes from food blogs that promised "authentic flavor" but ended up being ridiculous, like one where you had to hand-grind spices for an hour before cooking anything. My grandmother's lamb recipe is just garlic and rosemary and salt because she didn't believe in the culinary blogosphere either, which makes sense given that she also used to make her own soap from tallow in the kitchen next to where we ate dinner. We would sit at this long wooden table with lace doilies under everything and the smell of rendered fat was basically the permanent atmosphere of our house until I moved out for college and started eating frozen dinners because nobody had ever taught me how to actually cook a piece of meat from scratch, which is ironic considering my family's entire culinary identity.