Love, Hate, and Cookies

I love cooking for my family.  I like to dance while I do it.  I turn on my favorite music at the time, and do lazy twirls and booty shaking while I maneuver through the process of cooking a great meal, like a Boss! (which basically means to do something with expertise, skill, and domination) I am pretty good at creating delicious and satisfying meals that others enjoy and want again and again.  I also LOVE doing it.  My favorite food is vegetables.  I cook with them in every meal.  I not only create vegetable dishes, but I also use them like spices or flavorings.  I get a great sense of satisfaction in giving another person something tasty and also full of nutrition.  Nourishment is like sunshine.

I sometimes hate food.  I often have the thought that I wish I could eat like a normal person, like everyone else seems to be able to do.  I get the impression that people can eat without having the desire to gorge themselves.  I get the impression that people can have a sugary morsel of dessert and not suffer from a migraine the next day.  I often have the thought that I wish food wasn’t necessary.

As you can see these two things are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but I have to feel both of them in order to find a place in the middle to stand.  And to eat.  Don’t get me wrong. I DO eat, usually three to five times a day, and I like the taste and feel of food, but we have not always been friends and sometimes we battle.

I am not exactly sure when or why that battle began.  I have many poignant childhood memories of food.  One involves my mother.  Married young, with seven kids, a husband, and her own demons to sort out, my mother has had some emotionally unstable times.  I remember us being evicted from a tiny apartment where the eight of us(my parents had six kids at the time) shared two little bedrooms.  My parents couldn’t pay the rent, had no funds for car repairs, and were in a general state of distress.  My mother took the last of our food stamps and bought several packages of Oreo cookies and a gallon of milk.  I remember sitting across the table on a stack of boxes, my chin resting on the scratched wood surface, watching my mother eat an entire package of Oreo’s while she cried.  All of us kids had cookies too.  It was like a reward for surviving the difficult time we were having.  Or perhaps it was a treat in order to feel normal. My mother’s sobs between mouthfuls was very confusing.  Me and Oreo’s have never really gotten along. 

Do many people form relationships with food?  Is food sometimes like that sister, who you love, but you just can’t stand to spend more than an hour together because you end up offending each other?  Is your relationship with food a love affair?  Do you dream about it, wish for it?  Do you use it like a bandage for hard times, or a balm for a broken heart? 

I am putting food in a new category.  I believe it is simply nourishment, but also a tool in which to bring people together.  Like when I spend a little extra time making a meal particularly special to share with my family.  I suppose I still use food to express emotion, but now the food is usually healthful and the emotion is happiness.