The Joy (and Struggle) of Cooking
By: Monica Pirani
Tags: Food Insecurity, Cooking, Poverty, Foodies, Personal Essay

Food and I have a harrowed history. I grew up with food insecurity, from childhood well into my 20’s, and there were many days where I didn’t know if I would eat, or where my meal would come from. Now, in my late 30’s, I’ve built a safe home for myself with a well stocked pantry, but it’s been a journey of building a healthy relationship with food, the start of which was learning to feed myself.

Standing with my coffee, in a sunbeam in my kitchen.

I taught myself to cook in three small kitchen’s in California, apartment hopping for a year while I mended a broken heart. First in the Bay area and then finally settling down in LA, I poured out tears and curse words with every burn to my hand, every misstep of the recipe directions, and all the over and undercooked dishes I made that year. From boiling artichokes as big as my head, to learning how to properly cook fish en papillote, to perfecting the only recipe I knew, breaded chicken cutlets, I cooked my way through the fears and insecurities — and did I mention I cursed a lot, even for someone born and raised in New Jersey.

When you grow up with food insecurity you develop a complicated relationship to food, especially when neither of your parents can cook well. No one ever taught me how to cook, and many a dinner in college came from the dining hall, a can of soup, or a $1 slice of pizza. I felt wildly inept and stupid in the kitchen, completely lost with no reference to what anything was or how anything worked. To add insult to injury, the mended heart I was caring for in California was broken by a young man who had dreamt of becoming a chef. For a time, I thought I’d never have to cook again, or that maybe he’d teach me some recipes. Instead, he pretended to be in love with me for four months while he cheated on me with a friend of a friend, only to tell me we were through mere days after I got my college degree, and on the day he was supposed to fly in for my cousins wedding where he was going to meet my Grandfather and my extended family. He lied, he said, because he didn’t want to break up with me when I was so close to graduating. He thought it the kind thing to do, and didn’t want to be the reason I didn’t get my degree. (You can’t tell, but every time I think about, or read that out loud, I roll my eyes so far back into my head that one day they might permanently get stuck there). Teaching myself to cook was not only a way for me to heal generations of food insecurity including my own, but also taught me to trust that I could nourish myself.

All of the cursing and yelling was worth it though when I realized that I could make food that tasted good. It was a bittersweet moment, because once I realized I could cook I knew I’d have to keep doing it. I don’t remember the exact meal, but it was somewhere between a perfectly simple pasta sauce and a superbly roasted sweet potato dish that I knew I had fallen in love with the kitchen. Ex’s and traumatic childhoods be damned, I had learned to feed myself and I wasn’t turning back. The kitchen had become a place I felt loved and proud in, there aren’t many rooms in a home where those emotions blossom so fully, but I had found them and decided to devote a large portion of my life to creating meals that warmed my heart and filled my soul. I moved back to NY after my year in the Golden State with an eagerness to keep cooking.

While learning to cook had been emotionally healing, cooking with my spouse Adam has easily been one of the most joyful and rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. It is no small feat to learn to share a kitchen and work in tandem, to speak to one another with compassion and clarity even with bellies rumbling, to accommodate the speed (or lack thereof) of certain tasks we each are capable of, and to hold space for one another with grace and abundance while trying to create something edible and delicious. What started as awkward flirting between friends in a tiny kitchen on the border of Alphabet City and the East Village, blossomed into beautiful meals that have an abundant texture of love and joy, deeper than any umami could provide. If California challenged the vulnerable parts of me until I felt grounded in myself; cooking with Adam made me feel weightless and full of possibilities. Each meal we make together is nurturing not only to our marriage, but also to our life. If I could do just one thing for the rest of my days on this planet it would be cooking and dancing with him in the kitchen. That love is the biggest and most cherished gift I have ever received.

I’ve been cooking for over a decade now and while I’m no expert, I’ve learned that cooking is only as easy as the tools you have to use. My absolute favorite item (followed closely by my Instant Pot and Wüsthof knives) is a set of wooden spoons. Adam gave me a peculiar look the first time he saw me massaging olive oil into them with a tenderness normally reserved for a loved one. They get washed by hand and oiled every few weeks, and I use them for everything. No silicone or plastic utensil has ever paled in comparison.

There is something about cooking with a wooden spoon, it’s sturdiness and reliability is grounding through all the curries and tomato sauces. There is a certain pride and accomplishment in wielding it to create life sustaining joyful meals that fill my heart and the hearts of my loved ones, rather than remembering it as the threat of a beating it was once associated with. Caring for it is a reminder to care for myself with each meal I make, shown explicitly in the way that washing off the remnants of a hearty homemade stew made from fresh ingredients and left to simmer for hours, is far easier than washing off the caked processed grit that results from a quick dinner, à la a box of Annie’s mac n cheese.

I do not take for granted any moment in my kitchen. Above my stove is a rustic metal sign, the letters punched out by a metal press, that reads “Everything Will Be Alright”. It comes from my favorite vintage shop near our old East Village apartment, a reminder that no matter what challenges may lie ahead, and no matter how much they may resurface old wounds, I have come this far. That I can continue to care for myself, my loved ones, and my trusty utensils to support and nourish me and make the best out of what we have, both in life, and in the kitchen.

(Originally published on www.monicapirani.com on 12/15/2020)