Heartbreak- the beginning

I love food; I love everything about it.. I love planning a meal, whether it's for the two or eight, or twenty for the small little event planning business I own with a friend. After a hard day at work, I always found coming home, stripping my clothes off into something more comfortable, and beginning to prepare dinner a comforting ritual; one that helped chip away the stress of the day. The meditative chopping, the smells, the act of providing a delicious dinner to my loved one fed my soul in the perfect counterpoint to the soul draining work of the day.

Food feeds the soul, and to me, the act of cooking for those you care for is the most generous thing you can do. In preparing a meal, you are giving your time and sharing a piece of yourself that translates to the dish. I love going to new restaurants; I always have a running list of places to try or return to. T and I became passionate devotees to anything prix fixe. There's beauty in being able to taste a sampling of many delicious bites over the course of the evening. Happily, T was a food lover as well; he enthusiastically embraced new tastes, new places, new wines. After finding a groove with one another in the kitchen, we cooked dinners together, each of us taking a role. Sundays were often spent on long, luxurious dishes- slow, aromatic braised meat dishes, Sunday bolognese, stews or soups, roasting chickens on the grill. Sundays were the days when we could take our time, enjoy the process a little more than the weeknights afforded us. and always, there was wine to be had.. We shared a deep appreciation for wine.


Three years ago, T built me raised garden beds, and we began to grow food. My consciousness about where my food comes from was growing, and I wanted to do what I could to provide for our little family. The planning of the garden was almost as much fun as the harvesting the fruits of our labor. We both equally enjoyed the garden; I would often sofly scold T for harvesting before I came home from work. We ate, cooked, preserved and shared from this garden- each year expanding the area to include more.

On September 18th, my lovely little world came crashing down around me, all very unexpectedly. My partner, T, confessed to me that he needed space, a break, freedom. He wanted me to move from the home we've shared for the past 7 years. I was devastated, heartbroken, and more than a little stunned.

As you can imagine, my taste for food (for anything really) went away pretty quickly once the news broke. I couldn't stomach much of anything, except red wine in mass quantities. As I hunted for a new home, each place showcasing a much smaller kitchen that what I was leaving- I wondered-- would I be able to enjoy food as I had before? I feared that much of my passion and enjoyment of food was tied to T; my culinary talents blossoming considerably in the eight years together. We had shared a mutual love of food and growing it together, and the joy for cooking for our little family was now no longer. Would I be able to muster that joy in the kitchen again? Would prepping for a meal at the end of the day fill me with a calm or dread? Would I be able to passionately plan a dinner, only to eat it alone?

This is my journey back to the kitchen, and back to life.