I have become obsessed with food. I came to this realization (or rather Jeff brought me to this realization) about six months ago as I stood over a pan attempting to replicate my favorite restaurant’s recipe for shahi paneer. After tasting my creation, I declared, “it needs more turmeric” and proceeded to add in another 1/4 teaspoon. Jeff looked at me quizzically and asked, “How do you even know what turmeric tastes like? How do you know that it needs more?” “I don’t know how”, I replied. “It just does”. And you know what…I was right, it did.
I grew up on a pretty typical American diet…meatloaf, spaghetti, pork chops, canned fruit, etc. My father enjoyed cooking, especially Italian so we ate a bit more Italian than most. My mother disliked cooking but was an excellent baker so we ate a bit more pie and cake than most. We would occasionally even come home with nothing ready for dinner but a fresh apple pie. We certainly didn’t complain and to this day I consider pie an excellent breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. I loved to eat, but I didn’t think much beyond what I liked to eat and what I disliked.
All of that changed when I was thirteen and took woodshop. At our school all of the seventh and eighth grade girls were automatically enrolled in home economics as an elective, all of the boys were automatically enrolled in woodshop. After a year of submitting to a pointless home ec class in which we made such culinary delights as kool-aid and microwave popcorn I protested the sexist policy of putting all the girls into home ec. Which is how I ended up in woodshop with only one other lone protester – a girl named Brenna. As the only two girls Brenna and I got to talking. Even at thirteen Brenna was a girl of strong political convictions one of which was animal welfare, thus she was a vegetarian. It only took about half a day for me to decide that if I loved animals then I too should be a vegetarian. So somewhere in between lunch and dinner I became one. Much to my surprise, my mother accepted my announcement rather easily. I now realize that she was probably just humoring me, thinking my vegetarianism to be a phase. I subsisted primarily on a diet of carbs, cheese, and sugar. The closest I got to ethnic food was a burrito. I didn’t know anyone else who was a vegetarian and thought that vegetarianism simply meant eating the typical fare sans meat.
Then I went to college. Two things changed my eating habits in college. The first was the truly heinous nature of dorm food. In a word, the food was terrible. The pasta was overcooked and coated in oil. They even managed to ruin my favorite comfort food, a grilled cheese, by making them ahead and wrapping them in foil. When “hatched” from their cocoon the grilled cheese sandwiches were a pathetic flaccid mockery of the great cheese and carb combo. Instead of gaining the freshman 15, I lost it. The second thing to happen was Jeff. For our first date he took me out to eat at a hole-the-wall Mexican joint, that sadly no longer exists. Jeff was used to going out to eat at least once a week and together we began to explore Mexican, Thai, and Indian cuisine. I had clearly missed out on a lot of culinary diversity during my first eighteen years.
I gradually started to cook. One of the first things I made was lasagna. It turned out pretty well. Emboldened I made cookies. They were quickly eaten. I began to look forward to going to the grocery store. On one of my forays I decided to get butter rather than margarine wondering what sort of difference in taste it might give my baked goods. Butter and I quickly became very good friends. I discovered cream. I began to use fresh herbs; then I began to grow them. I began to bring homemade desserts to all family parties. We self-catered Jeff’s parent’s surprise 25th wedding anniversary party for 50. Two days before our wedding I made nine separate desserts for our rehearsal dinner, cheesecakes, pies, tarts, and cakes. We began to host Thanksgiving dinners; once we had 26 people crammed into our house.
But as much as I liked to cook it was still really just a hobby. I bought organic as much as possible but I didn’t give much thought to where our food came from beyond that. Then Thomas was born.
I actually baked chocolate chip cookies during my labor with Thomas. I also ate a grilled cheese sandwich, mashed potatoes, a banana, an ungrilled cheese sandwich, and the aforementioned cookies during labor. And I have been ravenously hungry ever since.
Not only was I hungry, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. Thomas has not been what I would call an “easy baby”. He craved constant movement, but hated the carseat with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. So we went on long walks and I wore him in a sling. I couldn’t sit with him in the sling – that lead to screaming. If I stayed in motion he was content and would even sleep for hours at a time. We were walking five miles a day but it still wasn’t enough. So I walked around the yard and gardened and walked around the kitchen and cooked. I made dinner and dessert while he dozed in the sling. I would sometimes look down and see his tiny sleeping head dusted with cookie crumbs as he snoozed and I sampled my creations. As he grew he moved from the sling to a bouncy seat to a quilt on the floor to a highchair to a chair he stands on next to me. I am never happier than when we are cooking together.
Somewhere along the line food became a passion. Then suddenly it became a necessity. When Thomas was very young we thought he might have colic. He was so very difficult to comfort – only nursing and/or bouncing would do. Six weeks past, then twelve, then six months and he wasn’t growing out of it. We began to suspect a food intolerance or allergy. I cut out dairy with no effect. Then I cut out soy with some improvement on his part. But not enough, he was constantly congested and rashy. At one year old he suffered from acid reflux and woke up a minimum of five times a night. We were able to get allergy testing and were given our first answer – a severe allergy to eggs. We immediately cut out all eggs from Thomas and my diet. It turns out, eggs are in a lot of things: breads, ice cream, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and candy. Many other items are made on shared equipment with eggs – also taboo. I gave away a couple of hundred dollars worth of food. Thomas’ symptoms improved and then began to worsen again. A couple of months later we found out he was also allergic to garlic, sesame, peppercorns, and cantaloupe. Cutting out garlic has been an odyssey. We gave away another few hundred dollars worth of food and then I made the most depressing grocery store trip I have ever made. I walked though the aisles of Trader Joes and Whole Foods looking for items that did not contain the forbidden foods. I found almost nothing. A few brands of granola bars, precisely two salad dressings, and raspberry brie phyllo rolls of all things. I actually began to cry in the spice aisle of Whole Foods as I realized that even curry powder and chili powder contained the forbidden and were now off limits. I would have to cook everything from the bare basics, blend my own spices, soak my own beans (many of the canned beans are made on shared equipment with eggs). For the first time I hated the idea of cooking and now I (or Jeff) had to. We certainly couldn’t get takeout.
I was angry for quite awhile. Now I am obsessed. It’s much better that way. I decided I would make everything and I would make it great. We would not feel deprived because we couldn’t eat processed food, we would feel lucky that we were eating such delicious healthy food. That’s where I am today. That’s where this blog begins.
