open kitchens
Services like Doordash and Uber Eats have replaced cooking for many city dwellers. I’m always dodging these deliveries in transit on the sidewalk. Shortish men in weatherproof gear carry plastic bags on customized scooters and e-bikes. (The e-bikes have been subject to local controversy because the batteries that power them tend to explode.) Today I saw one adorned with a six inch plastic skeleton and at least two reflective Virgin Mary decals. The driver’s hands were fixed to their handlebars with reinforced oven mitts, which is common.
(Recently the city raised the minimum wage for delivery workers, which was quickly met with a puzzling, if not surprising, response by companies like Uber Eats, who de-incentivized tipping, even though they don’t receive a percentage of drivers’ tips.)
For years I worked delivery jobs, and I cherished the voyeur’s glimpse they provided. Recipients would wait in bright kitchens with curtains open to the world, like fishbowls.
Urban eating is framed by a mutual gaze. In this context, a simulacrum of behind-the-scenes kitchen environments titillates the urban diner much like pornography. The Bear, The Menu, Kitchen Rescue, Chef’s Table, Hell’s Kitchen, etc.
It’s not difficult to imagine a 30-something real estate agent or graphic designer unwinding with a culinary TV show while waiting for an Uber Eats delivery. Farro close-ups flicker on one screen as his dinner, a moving dot, approaches on another, like a remotely controlled vibrator pushing the submissive toward climax. With enough distance anything is sex.