Simple. Food. Cooking. Eating. Indulgence. This is THE basic need that gives me the most pleasure. I need to share it.
September 18, 2026
I’ve been in my new home for a month. I’m going through a divorce right now. My ex and I separated in May 2025 and I had been working toward a separation for god knows how long.
Cooking had been an important part of my self-expression for some time but I had all but abandoned it for some time now. In 2023 I experienced something pretty traumatic and I couldn’t eat. I lost a bunch of weight, the kids retreated to their bedrooms after school, and we didn’t all sit around a dinner table together for a long time.
After my boyfriend and I started dating about a year ago, I found pleasure yet again in cooking for him. My kids were teens going in a million different directions with food preferences that inhibited my creativity. I had given up on cooking. I was working late most nights so when I got home, it was easy to tell myself, “What the fuck is the point”. Then Noah happened.
Noah had been a friend for several years and after he abruptly confessed his love for me (a story for another time), I conceded and began dating him. He was working a late mid-shift at the time and had been a perpetual bachelor. Something rather primal took over me and I was compelled to make him food (that statement sounds so trad-wife-centric and makes me want to vom a bit). I
ANYWAY. My relationship with Noah creaked open a door to my Self that I hadn’t been familiar with for years. Suddenly, I was preoccupied with meal planning, grocery lists, breaking out my favorite cooking gear, turning up the music and settling into my self-energy in my kitchen. I would deliver my creations to him several nights a week. We’d laugh and joke in the parking lost when I’d bring him his dinner. He’d text me or call me after he ate, always letting me know it was exactly what he needed, that it was the most amazing thing he’d ever had, that he felt spoiled and undeserving of my edible expressions of love. My god – it felt amazing to create again. Out of habit, I always double any recipe so there’s always enough for lunches when I’m working remotely, to share with work friends, and of course, to pack my boyfriend’s lunches.
I’m not telling you that last part because I think that’s a standard people should keep or because I’m trying to humble-brag about what a good girlfriend I am. I’m telling you that last part so I can tell you what usually happens – A LOT of food waste. I’ll cook too many days in a row, over-estimate how much my kids will actually prioritize consuming over shitty fast food now that they’re teens, or I’ll just stop wanting what I made and I’ll make something else. Don’t be like me. Make a single fucking batch, for fuck’s sake.
Anyway, cooking is a hobby that I have enjoyed for several years now, but I don’t have an idyllic story about how, “I used to watch my mother make our family dinner until I was old enough to help. She’d pull up a foot stool and taught me how to dice onions without tearing up” or anything. In fact, I only remember my mom warming up frozen spinach with butter or sticking a bunch of shit in a crockpot and calling it a pot roast once a year or so. Other than that, I grew up on the frozen single serving dinner called Michelina’s Shrimp Alfredo or microwaving cheese wrapped in a tortilla and watching Saved by the Bell after school. I remember loving crunchy peanut butter and raspberry preserves between a hamburger bun after an entire day at the Silver Lake Pool. I remember calling the local bar repeatedly to contact my mom and tell her I was hungry many nights… until the bartender would yell at me to stop calling and take the phone off the hook. I remember there being no food in the fridge and when I’d tell my mom I was hungry, she’d tell me, “What the fuck do you mean? I just spent $50 on groceries,” literally 10 days after buying $50 on groceries weeks earlier and there being no food in the fridge.
Maybe that’s why I love food so much. Maybe that’s why I’d rather have 10 Tupperwares filled with individual meals in the fridge at all times. Maybe that’s why I always double a recipe, why I always buy 2-3 bags of tortilla chips at a time, why I insist on cooking for kids who are nearly adults and would prefer to just drive themselves to the closest fast food restaurant than to eat something created just for them. It’s not really about them – it’s about knowing I’m always offering to nourish them, even if they don’t want or need it.
Life as Art 