I was thirty-four years old and I was still eating like an undergrad . I ate a lot of pre-cooked food from the grocery store — sandwiches , chicken breasts — and made frequent use of the salad bar . ( Remember salad bars ?) The proximity of my apartment to Wayland Square , Thayer Street and Wickenden Street made it easy for a steady rotation of options for weeknight takeout : burritos , sushi , pizza , tikka masala . And at least once a week , I had dinner with my parents , who live about a half-mile from me , in the house where I grew up .
These facts are a bit embarrassing to share , and they were embarrassing to live . Now , to be fair , I wasn ’ t completely lost in the kitchen . I could scramble eggs . I could boil tortellini and toss in some store-bought sauce . I could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich . But I ’ m a deeply anxious person with a long history of avoidant behavior . And for most of my life , the kitchen — like motorcycles , amusement parks and most recreational drugs — had been something I avoided .
Since turning thirty , I had been grappling with ever-moreintense waves of anxiety and depression . And this had culminated in a period of burnout during the summer of 2017 , when I was physically unable to work for about six weeks . To climb out of that , I went to regular therapy sessions and read plenty of selfhelp books , and I also began to assemble a new life for myself , piece by piece . “ Who am I , actually , outside of being a writer and teacher ? And what do I like to do with my free time ?” I didn ’ t have the answer to these questions , but for the first time in my adult life , I was committed to finding answers . Learning to cook was a step in this journey .
And so , in June of 2019 , I purchased a subscription to a meal service , HelloFresh , which would deliver two meals with preportioned ingredients and easy-to-follow instruction cards , to my doorstep every week . My kitchen was already stocked with some basic tools : a few pots and pans , a couple pairs of tongs , some wooden spoons , a whisk , a few cutting boards , some decent knives for chopping . And by early 2020 , I had started to make progress , thanks to the training wheels the meal service offered . I was increasingly comfortable chopping and sauteing . I was starting to get a feel for how long it takes to boil pasta and make rice and the differences between roasting Brussels sprouts and asparagus .
Then COVID happened . The restaurants I still relied on closed down . Sunday dinners with my parents were cancelled , too , out of caution for both their health and mine . Trips to the grocery store started to feel like a life-and-death proposition . I was on my own .
Over the next twelve months my new hobby became something else entirely : an antidote to fear , boredom , isolation , immobility and , of course , hunger . Cooking became the defining pastime of my pandemic experience and , more than anything else , it was the activity that kept me tethered to what remained of my sanity .
PHOTOGRPAPHY BY GEORGINA MANOK .
70 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l MAY 2021