a cook’s view.
PHOTOGRAPHS: HANNAH ROSE HUGHES. FOOD STYLING: JESS MEYER. STYLING: TONY HUTCHINSON
It’s been exhausting, hasn’t it? The trying not to get ill, and the worrying that those you love will get ill; holding down a job and home schooling; Couch-to-5k-ing and grocery shopping; craft project-ing and vegetable growing; the days of plucky cheerfulness and the ones of despair; the profound, gnawing missing of our peopled lives; the longing sometimes to be alone; the Netflixing, Zooming and Tik-Tok-ing; and in between all that, attempting somehow to feed ourselves three times a day, plus snacks - but not too many because at some point we are all going to have to wear something other than sweats.
My whole life, cooking has been my balm and my joy. I have cooked myself out of heartbreak and into friendships, to cheer myself up and calm myself down. On the best days of my life I have cooked, and on the worst ones too. Those days when I wasn’t sure I could put one foot in front of the other - and I certainly couldn’t form a coherent sentence - I came home, took off my coat and started chopping, melting, stirring my troubles into dinner and somehow, silently, everything was a bit better. And even if it wasn’t, at least there was now soup, or pasta, or bread, and that would do for now.
“Many of us have run the whole gamut, from sourdough for breakfast to Haribo Sour Suckers for dinner. Don’t judge me”