You can't tame a life. You can tame a drawer. Start there.

Heads up, there's one French word in here that stays French. English kept wanting to translate it as something too aggressive. I said no.

It’s 7 PM. I descend to the lobby to retrieve my order, just dropped off by the courier on the small white table near the entrance, already crowded with other deliveries. I don’t know who cooked it. I don’t even remember the name of the restaurant I tapped on, or the name of the dish, which was written in Thai anyway. Now I choose by the photo, and I cross my fingers. Back in my room, settled on that rounded sort of sofa facing the bed, I unwrap the thin transparent container from its plastic bag, where my receipt has been carefully stapled.

Containers, or Tupp’, as we call them in my Family, we have plenty of them at home, in Lorraine, France. A collection, even. Beware whoever opens the drawer beneath the microwave; we’re never far from a plastic avalanche. My father arranges them methodically, for himself, with the affection of someone preparing a client’s order, with a particular care only he possesses. He pulls out five from the drawer, and each will be filled with a different dish, which he’ll eat at noon, or perhaps in the evening, in the small Airbnb he’s rented for the week, like a little portion of home’s flavor, even from far away.

When someone asked my father the traditional question, what do you want to be when you grow up, he answered cook, without hesitation. And he became one, cook. Culinary school, hospitality internship, even one in the mountains, in a renowned hotel, s’il vous plaît! Life led him to become a cook in a retirement home, and that’s when I arrived in his life, by the way. He has since changed professions, but you don’t erase such an important part of your life just like that. He may be a welder now, but cooking will remain in his habits, whether he cooks for himself or for others, he will always take pleasure in it.

Like him, going off on weekly assignments in Germany, I left Dubai over a month ago ,not really by choice. The first place, country, city, condominium where I felt rather at home, after a few months. We had bought a candle that smelled clean, an orange vase with all those little ridges, and I had even won a cushion shaped like a cat, all soft. As if I had apprivoisé the place.

Apprivoiser. I keep this one in French because the English equivalents miss the point. Tame is for horses. Domesticate sounds like a project. Apprivoiser is softer than both, what you do to a place slowly, accumulating small recognitions: which drawer holds the spoons, how the candle smells when you light it, the orange vase you walk past every day until you stop seeing it.

Except maybe the air conditioning, which remained a mystery to me, all-or-nothing functioning, either too warm or absolute frost. So for this adventure, I wanted a room that resembled an apartment, somewhat. I took the largest one, the one with a bigger refrigerator, a real sofa, a washing machine, and a cooktop, enough to cook my favorite dishes, my childhood dishes, the ones that exercise memory.

Galushkis. Or Galoushkis? I never knew how to spell it. The taste, though, that I know by heart. It’s my favorite dish. I always thought it was Russian. My paternal grandmother calls them melkdnedle, the German version. And a friend from Kazakhstan knows them too, she says they’re Ukrainian. No one really knows where they come from. But I know that the creamy taste, the texture like a small cloud, will remind me of home forever, regardless of where the dish actually comes from.

Bangkok, more than a month here, in the same hotel, frequenting the same 7-Eleven, which has ultimately replaced my kitchen, my cooktop, my childhood dishes. When I say two steps, I mean two steps. I go there every day, at least once, for my famous chicken-and-egg combo. There’s a rotation of cashiers, but I often see the same young woman. Pale complexion, dark eyeliner, black hair gathered back with a black bow, and of course, the famous 7-Eleven uniform. I remember her, I can describe her, I recognize her every time I walk through the door that greets me with its famous Hello, welcooome. But she, I may be mistaken , still doesn’t recognize me.

For Tobias, it’s 100% wet food, with mineral water added on top, s’il vous plaît. I finally have my preferred little pet store, where I order online. No face, no physical presence, yet by the fifth order, I started receiving small signs of affection, my cat food arrived in a small cardboard box covered in colors and cats with eyes too big, a little treat for Tobias, wrapped in transparent plastic, with a small heart sticker on top. It made me smile.

I have, of course, dropped a few grains of rice on the round sofa. The table is now covered in waste, an empty container, a can with a bit of soda still at the bottom, a plastic bag I tore open fifteen minutes ago, too impatient to eat. After a small sigh of satisfaction, I gather it all into a larger bag, which will wait outside the door for the housekeeper to take away. This empty container, this one, will not join the famous Tupp’ collection back home.