This was wonderful. Thank you. Made myself some kitchari today because I know I’m doing the thing where I stress eat bags of potato chips and then raid my kids cheese sticks & jerky stash for “protein.” Lentils and rice always help my stomach to settle. Hopefully my heart too. ❤️🩹
I have made soup three times in the past two weeks. Simple pastas, baked potatoes and cheese and crackers are my go to’s these days. I rarely eat a full meal, but praise myself for eating any amount.
My daughter is having a baby soon and I am finding joy in cooking for her family (freezer food) ❤️
I love that you intuitively feel that Indian spices calm your constitution. Ayurveda recognises great digestive benefits by incorporating all six tastes in one meal: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. The spices help to achieve the balance of six tastes. When a meal is balanced in this way, you should not have any cravings. Thank you as always for your beautiful and thoughtful and thought-provoking writing.
I am so the same when my emotions are strong—in any direction. Too happy and excited? Still can’t eat! Love the cookbook rec at the end. Have you heard of this one by Margaret Eby? It’s been on my list to check out. Honestly I’m also a big fan of recipes from Yummy Toddler Food on Instagram when it feels too hard to cook (a separate problem from a lack of appetite for me). https://www.vogue.com/article/margaret-eby-yougotta-eat-interview
A beautiful essay (I would like some cheese rice, please).
But I have to add: My maternal grandmother was also a diminutive Brooklyn cardshark! She was so devoted to poker, and so ruthlessly good at it, that they turned the middle of their Bay Ridge basement into a card club, with shiny tables, dark-paneled walls, and engraved plaques memorializing people who had gotten extremely good hands. Between the card club and the back wall was a small, perfect black-enamel bar filled with fancy bottles, which was oddly close to a storm door that led to the alley. It was always impressed upon me that this layout was merely an accident of construction, and not anything that anyone needed to ask questions about, especially not inquisitive children.
I really appreciated this. I'm already challenged to cook these days because I'm living solo. This stress of the day-to-day unreal and challenging changing landscape is not helping.
I have been forcing myself to cut up an apple into bite-sized pieces to ear when I would rather be eating chips.
I also cook potatoes, any kind or color, in the microwave. I wash them and stab it several times with a sharp paring knife, rather than using a fork. I wrap it in a paper towel and use the potato setting. They come out well cooked. I can top them with a sauce or beans or mash them and mix up with some vegan butter and cooked Kale or spinach. My other hack is to use Trader Joe's vegan dill dressing.
I’m now craving those fried eggs cooked in sesame oil with rice vinegar. For me, it’s always a bowl of rice with tamari, and maybe a runny fried egg on top.
Great essay . After four weeks in hospital not eating and on a picc feeding line due to illness , one nutritionist got through to me. You decide, think of yourself as a child what nursery food can you fancy. So mouthful by mouthful I moved forward .
Wonderful article and as I read, "I am not the only one either profoundly disturbed by what is going in in the country --and in my life--that it affects my eating." So I will try several of your recipes they appear "perfect" for the times.
And here's some of my own addicting and easy favorites sustaining me these days: (And to do what they are supposed to do, "sustain" in times of extreme distress, I also feed my other needs at the same time: read New Yorker fiction or other articles and critique the cartoons or watch thrillers or English crime series on Tubi and Pluto on my iPad while eating standing up at the kitchen counter.)
📌Recipe 1: Cook a mixture of tri-color quinoa and brown rice in a skillet with onions and multi-color mini-peppers. Season with G. Hughes sugar-free sauces of any flavor. Done! Variation: Throw in oven-browned veggie "beef crumbles" or occasionally chicken thighs, or cheap steak or ham or pre-cooked crisp turkey bacon or a fried egg. *Variation: throw in some sliced summer squash and zucchini.)
(Equally delicious cold the next day mixed in with iceberg chunks and halved cherry tomatoes and G. Hughes sugar-free Italian dressing.)
Have with either version: brewed dark unsweetened ice tea or Instant expresso.
📌Recipe 2: Canned tuna, canned corn, gobs of shredded medium cheddar and cook in a skillet until a slight crust.
Drink with low-sodium V-8.
📌Recipe 3: The simplest, but still very satisfying: Any kind of hummus with low sodium Triscuits. On the side: Avocado with G. Hughes Italian dressing. Drink chilled chocolate almond milk.
Add any kind of a piece of fruit to each meal.
One bonus of "eating for such times": I lost 35 pounds effortlessly and notably without any kind of portion control.
Wonderful article and as I read, "I am not the only one either profoundly disturbed by what is going in in the country --and in my life--that it affects my eating." So I will try several of your recipes they appear "perfect" for the times.
And here's some of my own addicting and easy favorites sustaining me these days: (And to do what they are supposed to do, "sustain" in times of extreme distress, I also feed my other needs at the same time: read New Yorker fiction or other articles and critique the cartoons or watch thrillers or English crime series on Tubi and Pluto on my iPad while eating standing up at the kitchen counter.)
📌Recipe 1: Cook a mixture of tri-color quinoa and brown rice in a skillet with onions and multi-color mini-peppers. Season with G. Hughes sugar-free sauces of any flavor. Done! Variation: Throw in oven-browned veggie "beef crumbles" or occasionally chicken thighs, or cheap steak or ham or pre-cooked crisp turkey bacon.
(Equally delicious cold the next day mixed in with iceberg chunks and halved cherry tomatoes and G. Hughes sugar-free Italian dressing,)
Have with either version: brewed dark unsweetened ice tea or Instant expresso.
📌Recipe 2: Canned tuna, canned corn, gobs of shredded medium cheddar and cook in a skillet until a slight crust.
Drink with low-sodium V-8.
📌Recipe 3: The simplest, but still very satisfying: Any kind of hummus with low sodium Triscuits. On the side: Avocado with G. Hughes Italian dressing. Drink chilled chocolate almond milk.
📌Recipe 4: 2 scrambled eggs either in some kind of toasted bread, muffin, roll, or just on a plate WITH G, Hughes sugar free ketchup. Drink coffee.
Add any kind of a piece of fruit to each meal.
One bonus of "eating for such times": I lost 35 pounds effortlessly and notably without any kind of portion control.
If I am just psychologically well enough to care that I can't remember the last time I ate a proper vegetable, I will make a very simple tuna salad (just drained, canned tuna, mayo, salt, pepper, a touch of acid-- either lemon juice or a light vinegar) and stuff it into half of a green pepper. Then I will eat it, usually while standing at the kitchen counter or over a paper towel clutched in my hand while tucked under a blanket in my chair.
The feeling of return to virtue, even momentarily and only vaguely, helps.
Thank you for this. After grieving multiple losses, I have a hard time making myself cook for one, so for breakfast I make a batch of oatmeal that lasts in the refrigerator for several days, with a few almonds and raisins. I stir some liquid egg whites into a serving, microwave it,, and add a pat of Irish butter. My bad habit is emotional eating, such as the mini Trader Joe's dark chocolate peanut butter cups or some tasty crackers. I'm supposed to eat four servings of protein a day because of my workouts, and I find the choices to be unappealing, but I'm going to try cooking more often. I know that, as you said, "the act of cooking is both metaphysically and physically sustaining." Thank you again.
This is so soothing. I read this after eating a bowl of instant ramen for breakfast, in a funk of diffuse overwhelm. Carbs help.
To hell with keto. 💗
This was wonderful. Thank you. Made myself some kitchari today because I know I’m doing the thing where I stress eat bags of potato chips and then raid my kids cheese sticks & jerky stash for “protein.” Lentils and rice always help my stomach to settle. Hopefully my heart too. ❤️🩹
I have made soup three times in the past two weeks. Simple pastas, baked potatoes and cheese and crackers are my go to’s these days. I rarely eat a full meal, but praise myself for eating any amount.
My daughter is having a baby soon and I am finding joy in cooking for her family (freezer food) ❤️
I love that you intuitively feel that Indian spices calm your constitution. Ayurveda recognises great digestive benefits by incorporating all six tastes in one meal: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. The spices help to achieve the balance of six tastes. When a meal is balanced in this way, you should not have any cravings. Thank you as always for your beautiful and thoughtful and thought-provoking writing.
I am so the same when my emotions are strong—in any direction. Too happy and excited? Still can’t eat! Love the cookbook rec at the end. Have you heard of this one by Margaret Eby? It’s been on my list to check out. Honestly I’m also a big fan of recipes from Yummy Toddler Food on Instagram when it feels too hard to cook (a separate problem from a lack of appetite for me). https://www.vogue.com/article/margaret-eby-yougotta-eat-interview
A beautiful essay (I would like some cheese rice, please).
But I have to add: My maternal grandmother was also a diminutive Brooklyn cardshark! She was so devoted to poker, and so ruthlessly good at it, that they turned the middle of their Bay Ridge basement into a card club, with shiny tables, dark-paneled walls, and engraved plaques memorializing people who had gotten extremely good hands. Between the card club and the back wall was a small, perfect black-enamel bar filled with fancy bottles, which was oddly close to a storm door that led to the alley. It was always impressed upon me that this layout was merely an accident of construction, and not anything that anyone needed to ask questions about, especially not inquisitive children.
I really appreciated this. I'm already challenged to cook these days because I'm living solo. This stress of the day-to-day unreal and challenging changing landscape is not helping.
I have been forcing myself to cut up an apple into bite-sized pieces to ear when I would rather be eating chips.
I also cook potatoes, any kind or color, in the microwave. I wash them and stab it several times with a sharp paring knife, rather than using a fork. I wrap it in a paper towel and use the potato setting. They come out well cooked. I can top them with a sauce or beans or mash them and mix up with some vegan butter and cooked Kale or spinach. My other hack is to use Trader Joe's vegan dill dressing.
Ha! I eat the apples, not ear them!
I’m now craving those fried eggs cooked in sesame oil with rice vinegar. For me, it’s always a bowl of rice with tamari, and maybe a runny fried egg on top.
Great essay . After four weeks in hospital not eating and on a picc feeding line due to illness , one nutritionist got through to me. You decide, think of yourself as a child what nursery food can you fancy. So mouthful by mouthful I moved forward .
Feel better-🙏🏻
Wonderful article and as I read, "I am not the only one either profoundly disturbed by what is going in in the country --and in my life--that it affects my eating." So I will try several of your recipes they appear "perfect" for the times.
And here's some of my own addicting and easy favorites sustaining me these days: (And to do what they are supposed to do, "sustain" in times of extreme distress, I also feed my other needs at the same time: read New Yorker fiction or other articles and critique the cartoons or watch thrillers or English crime series on Tubi and Pluto on my iPad while eating standing up at the kitchen counter.)
📌Recipe 1: Cook a mixture of tri-color quinoa and brown rice in a skillet with onions and multi-color mini-peppers. Season with G. Hughes sugar-free sauces of any flavor. Done! Variation: Throw in oven-browned veggie "beef crumbles" or occasionally chicken thighs, or cheap steak or ham or pre-cooked crisp turkey bacon or a fried egg. *Variation: throw in some sliced summer squash and zucchini.)
(Equally delicious cold the next day mixed in with iceberg chunks and halved cherry tomatoes and G. Hughes sugar-free Italian dressing.)
Have with either version: brewed dark unsweetened ice tea or Instant expresso.
📌Recipe 2: Canned tuna, canned corn, gobs of shredded medium cheddar and cook in a skillet until a slight crust.
Drink with low-sodium V-8.
📌Recipe 3: The simplest, but still very satisfying: Any kind of hummus with low sodium Triscuits. On the side: Avocado with G. Hughes Italian dressing. Drink chilled chocolate almond milk.
Add any kind of a piece of fruit to each meal.
One bonus of "eating for such times": I lost 35 pounds effortlessly and notably without any kind of portion control.
Wonderful article and as I read, "I am not the only one either profoundly disturbed by what is going in in the country --and in my life--that it affects my eating." So I will try several of your recipes they appear "perfect" for the times.
And here's some of my own addicting and easy favorites sustaining me these days: (And to do what they are supposed to do, "sustain" in times of extreme distress, I also feed my other needs at the same time: read New Yorker fiction or other articles and critique the cartoons or watch thrillers or English crime series on Tubi and Pluto on my iPad while eating standing up at the kitchen counter.)
📌Recipe 1: Cook a mixture of tri-color quinoa and brown rice in a skillet with onions and multi-color mini-peppers. Season with G. Hughes sugar-free sauces of any flavor. Done! Variation: Throw in oven-browned veggie "beef crumbles" or occasionally chicken thighs, or cheap steak or ham or pre-cooked crisp turkey bacon.
(Equally delicious cold the next day mixed in with iceberg chunks and halved cherry tomatoes and G. Hughes sugar-free Italian dressing,)
Have with either version: brewed dark unsweetened ice tea or Instant expresso.
📌Recipe 2: Canned tuna, canned corn, gobs of shredded medium cheddar and cook in a skillet until a slight crust.
Drink with low-sodium V-8.
📌Recipe 3: The simplest, but still very satisfying: Any kind of hummus with low sodium Triscuits. On the side: Avocado with G. Hughes Italian dressing. Drink chilled chocolate almond milk.
📌Recipe 4: 2 scrambled eggs either in some kind of toasted bread, muffin, roll, or just on a plate WITH G, Hughes sugar free ketchup. Drink coffee.
Add any kind of a piece of fruit to each meal.
One bonus of "eating for such times": I lost 35 pounds effortlessly and notably without any kind of portion control.
Powerful. Insightful. Thanks for describing this, along with some suggestions.
Lovely honesty. I’m glad you’re eating again. You made me want to eat
Thank you for your strength
It's intermittent.....
If I am just psychologically well enough to care that I can't remember the last time I ate a proper vegetable, I will make a very simple tuna salad (just drained, canned tuna, mayo, salt, pepper, a touch of acid-- either lemon juice or a light vinegar) and stuff it into half of a green pepper. Then I will eat it, usually while standing at the kitchen counter or over a paper towel clutched in my hand while tucked under a blanket in my chair.
The feeling of return to virtue, even momentarily and only vaguely, helps.
Thank you Elissa. I finished reading "Permission" last night so you are very much the encouraging voice in my head. A still point in a noisy world.
Thank you for this. After grieving multiple losses, I have a hard time making myself cook for one, so for breakfast I make a batch of oatmeal that lasts in the refrigerator for several days, with a few almonds and raisins. I stir some liquid egg whites into a serving, microwave it,, and add a pat of Irish butter. My bad habit is emotional eating, such as the mini Trader Joe's dark chocolate peanut butter cups or some tasty crackers. I'm supposed to eat four servings of protein a day because of my workouts, and I find the choices to be unappealing, but I'm going to try cooking more often. I know that, as you said, "the act of cooking is both metaphysically and physically sustaining." Thank you again.