How Cooking Saved Me

Last August, when I went to a new hip surgeon for my first appointment I used the Rollator for show hoping to “prove” just how dire my situation was. The reality was I’d been suffering with the pain and limited movement for almost three years, even after several rounds of physical therapy and more than a few visits to orthopedists who insisted my BMI put me in the “non-surgical candidate” category.

The truth also was that I had barely started to use a cane. It’s not that I wasn’t in pain. I limped, leaned when I could, and went to bed each night with ice packs jammed in every crevice. But it took me a long time to acquiesce to a cane because I have an abnormally high threshold for physical pain. My ego constantly sharing its opinion, quite loudly, on everything it meant for me to need a mobility device when I was only 60, didn’t help.

By Christmas my hip joint had disintegrated to the point that I needed a wheelchair. The physical therapist who came to my apartment told me not to put any weight on it unless absolutely necessary. “You need to sit to do everything,” she instructed. “Washing dishes, cooking, preparing food. Putting weight on that joint is the absolute worst thing you can do.”

In a split second, my entire life changed - one minute I was standing at the top of a mountain enjoying the view and the next I was at the bottom of a double black diamond ski run wondering what the hell had happened.

There wasn’t much that remained the same. Instead of walking around my apartment, I wheeled in my office chair. I needed a shower chair and getting in and out of the shower was painful. I could no longer clean my living space, do laundry or or change my sheets. Getting out of my apartment was an effort, and I couldn’t spend time with my mother or friends in the way I was used to. I needed help to do almost everything I was used to doing on my own for decades.

I vacillated between feeling helpless and powerless and finding the determination and stamina to keep moving forward, even if that meant something completely different than it used to. I learned how to be more gentle, reassuring myself that I would do what I could when I could and that nothing was forever. Even when the sink was loaded with dishes and there were things on the floor I couldn’t pick up the reacher.

To compound things, my creativity shriveled to nothing. I couldn't motivate myself to write or paint or even just doodle with watercolor markers. I didn’t know who I was anymore without the desire to do those things.

So when the inspiration to get back in the kitchen and cook appeared, I felt invigorated to welcome back some of the old me. I love taking a recipe and using it as inspiration to create a similar dish, but one that had my fingerprints on it. I realize now that part of this creative flow was brought on by necessity. I had grown sick of eating sandwiches.

I would lie in bed (sitting was very painful after about ten to fifteen minutes), looking at recipes and inventing ways to make them better. I made things I’d never tried before, like a mad artist painting on pots and pans instead of canvas. I threw a bunch of ingredients together and called it goulash - egg noodles, chicken stock, ground turkey, onion, Tajin, cheddar cheese and mushrooms - the perfect comfort food for cold weather.

Recipes for cookies made of cake mix kept popping up in my news feed and using their ingredients as inspiration, I made two kinds - dried cranberries and toasted walnuts and the other with a cinnamon sugar mixture on top. I couldn’t believe how delicious they were.

I decided I wanted to make enchilada soup, so I figured it out. It was divine!

Old favorites like Bolognese were revamped and I got sassy and included Italian sausage, then went crazy and used rigatoni instead of spaghetti!

My tried and true Spanokopita Quiche tasted better than ever, rich with good feta and a lot of dill.

Sharing what I made became even more special because the effort it took to see someone was now worth it in ways I’d never experienced. It provided the connection I missed so much and allowed me to feel useful rather than like the slug I often felt like.

Cooking brought me back. Stoking those embers by chopping, dicing and balancing flavors helped the creative fire spread. I revisited some plays I’d written and produced readings with incredibly talented actors and an amazing director. Three more are scheduled for this year.

I began work in earnest on the book I’ve wanted to publish of the Haiku written by the eight intrepid souls who became the Haiku Ninja Collective, a group that gathered on Zoom every week for a year and a half during the pandemic to turn anxiety, confusion, sadness and anger into art.

Cooking reminds me that creativity is a process that requires time and that it’s OK for something to be ready when it’s ready, not when I believe it should be. I feel at peace knowing something is bubbling away on the stove - whether it be literal or metaphorical - and no longer have the impulse to rush it just so I can cross it off my list.

Somehow, the pain doesn’t seem as intense when I’m submerged in the process of creating. When I start feeling sorry for myself, lamenting what it takes for me to go out or the fact that I really can’t go to the movies or even meet someone for coffee, I start looking for something to make. Who knows what I’ll find next?

Mangiare!