Not too long ago I ran into a friend at the grocery store who had just gone through a break-up. We ran into each other in the produce aisle and commiserated over such things as Love Island and the ballooning cost of… everything. I checked in how she was doing post break up and during our conversation, she said, “I’m going to need some tips on cooking for one.”
This sounds like the kind of made-up anecdote that people such as bloggers and youth pastors use to messily intro their sermon but I promise this did actually happen. So, I took the prompt which wasn’t really a prompt, just conversation, and did what I usually do when I get creative prompts: I started writing.
As I was writing about cooking for one I also started writing about a lot of other things that are constantly in the back of my mind. Diet culture, loneliness, tech isolation, relationships, culture, what we owe to each other as human beings. None of that was the question but as I wrote more and more about the challenges of cooking for one, it began to feel like it was the answer.
I’ve been cooking for one for many years and I do have a repository of things I’ve learned in the process. But, when I think about why people find it so daunting to cook for one, I think it has more to do with that existential stuff. Cooking for one isn’t that hard, you just cook smaller portions. But the mindset of it, the pressure of needing to be efficient, and the reality of having no one to share a meal with is scary.
So, I am working on a long-form piece about what it means to cook for one: how to do it, and more importantly, how not to despair over it. At the bottom of this newsletter, you’ll find our main story today is a passage/preview of that long-form piece. I hope you find it interesting and please share ideas of how it can be better.
Announcement: This Isn’t Working
Next week, May 11, you can catch me as a guest star on the podcast This Isn’t Working. This Isn’t Working is a small indie podcast hosted by Tiffany Hardman and Sean McCarthy about the modern working world: its failures and its opportunities. I’m a day one fan of this podcast, Tiffany is a former colleague and now a friend of mine. When Tiffany first floated the idea to me of being a guest, I shared that I think This Isn’t Working shares a similar ethos with this blog. We all have to work and we all have to eat and it’s important we find ways to make it suck less.
I had a blast talking to Tiffany and Sean about food, work, creativity, my hatred of bell peppers, and writing as a career. I really recommend checking out my episode and all the others. You can find This Isn’t Working wherever you get your podcasts.
In Defense Opposition Of: Shoving a Stick Blender Into Your Salsa
Listen. Everyone calm down. But also, buckle up. “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” I will not be defending myself because I am about to drop the most controversial of my controversial food opinions. I hate chunky salsa. I know I’m wrong for this. I know I’m on the wrong side of a rich history of cuisine. I don’t care. Actually, I do care. I deeply care. I’m extremely self-conscious about this. But I refuse to live a lie anymore. Allow me to tell you something utterly unhinged that I do.
I buy a jar of Clint’s Texas Salsa (medium), my favorite grocery store salsa. I take it home from the store, I open it up, and I shove my whole ass stick blender down its maw and I blend. I blend on 1.5 speed because I am a monster. But, you know what? This is my truth. I don’t like a chunky salsa but I like the flavor of Clint’s. So I do what any sane person would do to take the path of least resistance. Is it right of me? No. Do I have a right? No. Is it what I do? Yes, it is.
The Five Costs of Cooking
My gospel of cooking for one is a Google doc that’s getting out of control. It’s at nearly 10,000 words of content and I haven’t even gotten to my thoughts on restrictive diets yet. This is a shortened version of one of the more complete passages I’ve written. I’m aware it sounds like the title of a self-help book for middle-aged women. But, who are any of us if not middle-aged women battling our boats against the current?