Food therapy

So I haven't been cooking much lately and have been living on dining out, mac and cheese and other junk food. And on top of it I haven't been watching my normal arsenal of cooking shows or patrolling the usual foodie websites. I guess it's a bonafide food funk. But I already notice things turning around. On a recent plane ride, the in-flight magazine was all about food. It kept me very entertained during the bumps and dips of that turbulent flight. Then I came across this article last night. It's about how cooking can be therapy and cites the Julie & Julia story as proof of this theory.

In the article, a psychiatrist says cooking is a great distraction and a way to get attention when you need to nurture and to be nurtured. Come to think of it, I think I was using cooking and baking for these very reasons for a long time now. It was a grand distraction and a protector because no one could say I wasn't busy or didn't care as long as there were leftovers in the fridge. But now it's different. Now I can cook for myself what I want. I can choose to do it for therapy or just because I want, say, a chickpea curry or found a great recipe online for brownies. It doesn't matter.

The article quotes cookbook author Lucy Saunders,"You can start from scratch and have something fresh and new. It's creativity with some measure of pleasure, and you can enjoy the results right away. And it's a wonderful way to engage the senses, even without a spark of romance."

So it's time to pick up my knife and whisk again and use them as tools to battle not only anger, sadness or anxiety, but also hunger! Food plain and simple.