I don't meal plan. I like to live in the moment when deciding what I want to eat, instead of being beholden to what I was in the mood for a week prior. But on a recent Sunday, that was all gonna change. I started the day full of drive and inspiration. I ended with a baloney sandwich.
All week I'd had a project in mind: cooking food from recently purchased cookbooks. Exploring cuisines whose techniques and ingredients I wasn’t intimately familiar with. The goal was to eat better food, save money by avoiding takeout, and gain some skills that would help me move beyond the cookbooks and improvise future meals. This was my plan all week, but by Sunday, it frankly just seemed like a lot of work in order to feed just me.
Growing up in Nebraska, I was raised with the values that actions were significant, and words meant little. If I had been spending this Sunday with friends or family, instead of lying on the couch, things might have been different. But in reality, I was recuperating from a week full of teleconferences, multiple first dates, reports, more than a few Spaghetts, and a natural wine fest. My original ambitions faded something fierce.
[As a brief aside and just to be crystal clear: I am a long-time defender of baloney. No asterisks, no qualifiers, no "only mortadella" (though that’s also fucking fantastic)—I just love baloney. Even before I fully embraced a more offal lifestyle, I knew what baloney was. You say “lips and assholes,” I say “don’t yuck my yum.” Baloney for life.
That being said, it nourishes me about as much as lying on this couch, noticing the sun has long since set, and that the only light left in my quiet apartment comes from a muted television and the white, solitary glow of my computer monitor.]
Maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I was home for Christmas. All the presents had been opened. As was our annual ritual, my nieces, brother, sister-in-law, and I sat in front of the tree. Afterward, we all went upstairs to continue following our usual holiday traditions—turning on the TV while Mom started working on our Christmas meal. I have a clear picture in my head of looking into my parents' kitchen and seeing one of my nieces just wanting to play with her grandmother.
Since my mom always cooked the holiday feast, she was left having to split her attention and affection between this child and a turkey. She would have never said anything, but anyone could see she just wanted to play with her granddaughter. After noticing that, I officially took over the kitchen at Christmas. Over the years, I managed to usurp all the cooking responsibilities. I now realize that I gave myself a gift more significant than the responsibilities I absorbed from my mom.
I love cooking over the holidays. I spend months planning and tinkering with recipes for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas Eve, and an additional Christmas meal for my old high school pals. It’s a mix of dishes everyone loves and couldn't imagine not eating (which is to say: a ton of mashed potatoes), plus new things that I want to share with the people I love.
Food brings me joy, and I enjoy bringing others joy. But finding that joy for myself? It isn't often a priority.
I'm not sure how to break that mindset. I still hold out hope that it’ll click—the right meal, the right blog, the right book that’ll convince me I should do something more. That my priority shouldn't always be about what is necessary, but what is possible. That I can transfer the joy from meals I share with loved ones into something for myself. If I’m being honest, it’s a lot to tackle right now. On the bright side, at least I have some extra baloney.
