issue 05 - (not) cooking for other people

on moving, eating & starting again

I’ve barely cooked at all this month. In the process of moving and starting a new job, there is very little time, and even less energy to be spent on something like cooking. Any cooking or baking I do is simply to use up ingredients in the pantry, so I have less to move with. When my ex-boyfriend was moving across the country, he left me a panoply of pantry items like barley and freekeh that I slowly cooked my way through, once I figured out what the fuck freekeh was. 

I’ve been so busy and so on the go that I’ve spent more money on eating out than on groceries this month. I didn’t even know that was possible for me. But I’ve mainly been subsisting on yogurt and granola and garlic knots and beer at open mics.  

Moving is disorienting, especially when you’ve lived in a place for a long time. It disrupts your normal routines, leaving you to pull art off the walls and pawn your items off on others when you’d normally be, say, cooking a beautiful dinner or maybe writing a newsletter. I am consumed by boxes and most of my mental energy is spent worrying about movers and landlords and cleaning four years of scuffs off my walls. 

Food has become unimportant to me for maybe the first time. I’ve enjoyed meals with friends, snacked on chips at parties and ate a picnic in the park with my boyfriend. But for the past three weeks, food has barely crossed my mind until a menu is placed in front of me. I drink a beer and then realize I haven’t eaten in six hours when I feel woozy. If you can’t afford Ozempic, can I suggest you try packing up all your belongings and coordinating a move? I never understood the people who don’t eat when they’re stressed Well now I get it — it feels euphoric and freeing at first. But it’s like not writing or not performing for a week or two. I start to feel off balance and disconnected.

So all that is to say, there’s no real newsletter this month. I didn’t cook for a single other person during the month of May. 

But in June, I prepared at least one meal. This month, I promise, I’ll have more to share. Until then, here’s the first dinner I cooked in our new place.