coming home to myself through cooking
& how understanding fungi is helping me heal
If you follow my IG stories, then you know how I love to cook and romanticize my food. But two years ago, the only time you’d ever really find me in a kitchen was microwaving leftovers and heating up hot water for tea.
I hated food prepping. I wasn’t fond of grocery stores. I found the entire process way too time consuming. A majority of my account transactions were from eating out because I prioritized speed and convenience over health and wellness. Now, I consider grocery shopping and cooking as a sacred act and a practice that is so close to my heart. The new found love has gotten me through some of my darkest times this past year. It has also played a major role in helping me rest my analytical mind and come back home to myself. Cooking is a meditation.
It took me a while to come to terms with how much I love to cook. I spent a good portion of my 20s anxious about not being able to commit to one craft long enough to develop it into a skill. This anxiety came to revisit when I started to grow a more intimate relationship with cooking. I began to worry if it was distracting me from my small business—helping children of immigrants clarify their soul goals through meditation and intergenerational healing—that I had just began almost a year prior. It was the first time I had ever put consistent action towards a dream. I often get pulled towards different directions because I’m fascinated by many areas of life and mediums of art. I get the impulse to dive into all things that inspire me. I’ve also jumped out of things quickly after shaming myself for getting distracted—or rather, meaning making and labeling it as a distraction. I’ve realized after far too many shame attacks that it’s mainly the shame that holds me back, and not necessarily the multitude of interests.
Learning to cook has changed me—is changing me. Profoundly. Hand picking my ingredients this past year and developing a somatic relationship to cooking has truly taught me how to slow down before diving in; to take a beat before beginning and listen to my intuition. I’ve been paying closer attention to my nonhuman kinfolk—plants, animals, insects, the moon, trees, fungi. I sometimes envy how intuitive they are—they don’t have to think about anything, they just do, and we marvel at their beauty—that is until I recognize how I hold the same intuitive power that resides in them. My handpicked ingredients send me messages. They whisper things like: You don’t need a recipe. You don’t need to have it all planned out. Just listen, and then… begin.
