My Favorite Dish is One I Didn’t Cook
Thank goodness for family, friends, and restaurants
For a brief period of time in middle school, I thought I wanted to be a chef (mostly a pastry chef). As M. J. Carson mentioned in her monthly challenge story, “I am one of those millions of modern humans, probably mostly female, who have entertained a difficult if not tortured relationship to food.” It’s a sadly common issue in our diet-obsessed culture, and I was clinically anorexic. A significant portion of people with eating disorders (like me) develop an avid interest in cooking, often because we can’t stop thinking about food and we’re eager to engage with it in ways that don’t involve actually eating it.
In any case, that was the most kitchen-focused period of my life.
How much has changed since then.
For one thing, I’m now a mother. Allegedly there are mothers out there who revel in providing lovingly-prepared meals for their families; there are also many of us who are sincerely tired of it. Cooking for the whole house easily becomes a chore. For my part— between delving into the kitchen for all the wrong reasons and then subsequently spending too much overburdened time there— cooking is no longer my jam.
Thank the magical stars my husband loves to cook. He gets this from his dad. Here’s…
