What Comforts You?

By , SparkPeople Blogger
Friday night I made a whole-grain blueberry crisp with soft-serve banana "ice cream." I experimented with a slow-cooker version of my favorite Turkish lentil soup. (Still tweaking that one.) Saturday I made homemade salsa with tomatoes and peppers from my garden. Sunday, I used that homemade salsa in a variation on my black-bean and sweet potato casserole. I subbed thawed and chopped frozen broccoli for the sweet potatoes and a lemon-coriander brown rice for the quinoa (it's a recipe from the upcoming cookbook, so I can't share it just yet), then paired it with spicy and smoky scalloped sweet potatoes.

This weekend's cooking marathon coincided with some bad news: My grandfather suffered a significant heart attack and will need open-heart surgery this week to clear some blocked arteries. Although he's in good spirits, and the doctors say his prognosis is good, it's still a scary thing to experience. To make matters even harder, my grandparents live in Wyoming, so I can't just rush right there to be with him.

I am staying optimistic, sending as many positive thoughts as I can in his direction. I've called, I've written him a letter, and I've sent photos of my new house and recent travels for him to look at while in the hospital. Tonight I'm going to make a batch of my famous granola for him and my gramma. Needless to say, my mind has been preoccupied at times.

When I'm sad, when I'm stressed, when I'm pondering major life changes, I head to the kitchen. Caramelizing onions, roasting tomatoes, chopping carrots, sifting flour all help to center and ground me. For me, cooking is a form of meditation. From a jumble of disparate ingredients springs forth a cohesive dish that, if all goes as planned, highlights its parts and unites to form an even greater whole.

For as long as I can remember, I've coped with sorrows and stress with food. The difference is that these days, instead of eating said food to numb myself or depriving myself of it as a way to control my life, I cook the food--and then usually eat reasonable portions of it--as a way to process my emotions. Like yoga or running, cooking soothes me. It provides me with a way to nourish the bodies and souls of others and lifts my spirits.

After eight months in Korea, I finagled a toaster oven when one of the other teachers at my school moved. My galley kitchen had a four-burner stovetop, a tiny fridge and a sink that barely held my largest pot. My dishes were few and mismatched, and my pots dinged and battered. I had one "good" place setting that I earned after saving rebate stamps from the supermarket for months.

It was wintertime, the holidays were drawing near, and homesickness had hit me--hard. When I walked outside, the bone-dry Seoul winds sucked the breath out of me and left my eyes watering. I had never been so cold, and the weather matched my mood.

At home, my mom was busy with her yearly tradition of baking a dozen varieties of cookies for friends, family, and neighbors. I missed her, the smell of cookies straight from the oven, and the hours spent together in the kitchen.

So I started making a shopping list, consulting my dictionary frequently to look up the Korean translations (flour in Korean, if anyone ever asks, is pronounced MEEL-ga-ru, and translates to "wheat powder"). An hour later, with a bulging bag of groceries in my arms, I set to work. Snickerdoodles and extra-gingery gingersnaps were on the menu. I had no mixer, two bowls, and only the baking sheet that came with the toaster oven. I baked batch after batch, six at a time. I went back to the 24-hour supermarket two more times for "meel ga-ru." When I started baking, I had no goal in mind. I was baking for myself, even though I really didn't have a desire to eat any cookies then. Eventually I set a lofty goal: I would bake cookies for all 150 students at my school, plus the dozen or so teachers, and my friends. I ended up baking 300 cookies over the course of a week. That's 50 half-batches of cookies. I baked every night for a week, and as each batch came out of the toaster, my holiday spirit returned a bit more.

Every flat surface in my 250-square-foot apartment was covered with plates of cookies, my kids' faces lit up when I gave them each a cookie as they filed out for the night, and my friends couldn't stop raving when I brought a tin of cookies to our Christmas Day turkey brunch at an ex-pat tavern. They hadn't had a home-baked cookie in months, and we were all spending the holiday with people we'd known for just weeks and months. Even now, the experience brings tears to my eyes. From an overwhelming feeling of loneliness came a tangible sense of satisfaction, with that first bite. A crisp exterior gave way to a perfectly light, airy and chewy interior. The dried and fresh ginger offered a bite, and the sugar on top provided crunch and sweetness. These weren't my mom's cookies, but they were just as good. Now, double-gingersnaps are a holiday staple for me.

Only now, I bake them two trays at a time in a real oven, in a much larger kitchen, 7,000 miles away.

How do you find comfort? Is cooking or baking a comfort for you? If not, what activity is?