In one sense, that is a good explanation. People, after a death, are limited at what they feel they can say. They are worried about saying the wrong thing. Anyone who has ever baked a caramel-frosted yellow cake knows the icing calls for physical beating to thicken. That's a good thing, says Starr.
Cooking can be rigorous exercise, a good release of the tensions after the death of someone special.
It's amazingly cathartic. When my cousin died too young a couple of years ago, I stood at the kitchen counter and, with tears in my eyes, beat sugar and butter into a pound cake. Ostensibly, I was cooking for the post-funeral luncheon. But I was really pounding out my frustrations with a wooden spoon. They are too easy.