I’ve Fallen out of Love With Food
How a year of eating at home has ended my lifelong love affair
The other day, I was sitting on my couch, minding my own sweat-pant-wearing business, when an email landed in my inbox. An update from a blog I subscribe to. A new recipe for a kale and shaved brussels sprout salad. Upon opening this email, a painful malaise struck me, like a gut punch. I groaned aloud. My concerned husband shouted from upstairs, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing.” But inside, I was thinking: Spare me. Spare me your stupid sprouts.
To be clear, it wasn’t actually the sprouts or the kale that bothered me. Those foods are fine. In normal times, my curiosity probably would’ve gotten the best of me and I would have clicked to open the blog post. The root of this pain was something deeper. The word ‘new.’ The birth of yet another recipe. The very existence of this food blogger, minding her business and developing new recipes as if everything was good and fine. The futility and sameness of it all.
After a whole year of eating at home, I am utterly exhausted by food. I am tired of cooking it, ordering it, shopping for it. I am tired of looking at pictures of it on Instagram. Yes, I still get hungry, and I do still derive some pleasure from eating, but the whole culture of food, the spicy song and dance, the flavourful…
