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“But Artyom I’m hungry!”
Artyom let out an exaggerated, sarcastic sigh from the kitchen, parodying Pavel’s latest hour of aggravated groveling. Pavel had plopped himself down at their miniature, sad excuse for a dining room table almost forty five minutes ago, and had been trying out different positions for forty of those minutes, occupying his time until he could finally eat.
“I’ll be finished in five minutes Athos, soon, soon!”
Artyom laughed off Pavel’s glares and disappeared behind the open doorway again, removing some tin or another from the oven. Food had been a large part of Artyom’s life when he was a kid; it was what little of his home life he could remember, and his uncle always did his best to preserve those memories. Sasha was Russian through and through, and had no idea how to cook middle eastern cuisine muchless make it taste good, but he always did his best; every birthday until he’d left, Artyom would wake up to the smell of frying za’atar and bulgur wafting into the tent from the public kitchen. Uncle Sasha had some weight around VDNKh, and so they’d give him near free reign for the day, at least once a year; it was always a treat. This year though, Artyom was in Polis, far from home and unable to make the trek back on such short notice; he’d have to cook for himself. It was a good thing, though— first birthday in the new apartment, first birthday with his sort-of-husband, sort-of being a legal term. It could be a learning experience. Pavel reclined in his seat smacking his feet down on the table until Artyom looked around the corner and silently behooved him to act civil.
“It’s done, it’s done Pavel one moment!”
Artyom slipped off the oven mits and untied his apron, and appeared in the doorless doorway hanging 3 metal dishes on each arm, beaming with pride. Pavel sat back, impressed with what he saw and cleared a space for each dish. One at a time, Artyom placed each bowl and saucer on the table, apologizing for the cheap metal dishes that clanged and banged; it was difficult getting fine diningware in the metro, you know. Artyom began excitedly pointing out each dish, letting Pavel know what each was and what to try first. One small pan contained what looked like balls of dirt to Pavel, not particularly appetizing; Artyom quickly told him they were kibbeh, bulgur wheat and lamb balls with pine nuts and lemon— a good appetizer.
“Oh and all of this is a meze— almost like an appetizer, I guess— OH and this is…” he went on, motioning to another plate, filled to the brim with small green finger-like things, dolma, Artyom called them. They were grape leaves filled with rice and allspice, and Pavel started downing them one after another as Artyom continued to rant and rave. Next, Artyom moved a plate infront of Pavel that had stacked on top of it what looked like little hand-pies, or stuffed dough.
“Now this is fatayar Pavel, they’re like the kibbeh but use bread and are stuffed with spinach— oh!” Artyom seemed lost in thought for a moment before darting back into the kitchen. Pavel was perfectly happy to finally get a meal and began wolfing down everything he could find, dousing all of it in the cucumber yoghurt sauce Artyom has also whipped up. Pavel pretty much ignored the salad, but looked up mouth stuffed with grape leaves, to see Artyom carrying a much larger, longer tin filled with— what… was that? Artyom placed it right in the center of the table, brushing aside the other dishes; the table was pretty full now, with little room to eat on.
“And this, is kebab halabi, it’s like uh, well it’s what it looks like! Beef and lamb in a spicy tomato sauce, though the sauce is mostly onions, what with what I could find…” Artyom began to take some for himself, and started with the dolma and fatayar, and of course ate more of the spinach salad that Pavel would. Pavel watched him in awe and with admiration, realizing he’d been so rude waiting for this— he didn’t even cook for him on his birthday! He reached out and grabbed Artyom’s arm, nabbing his attention.
“Artyom, this is… this is all incredible.”
“Well thanks, chuvak, I thought it’d be nice to—”
“Everything, I mean, Artyoshka, everything today— I’m… I’m glad I'm here... with you.”
Artyom’s face went beat red and he started to choke a bit— what a baby.