How does the kitchen increase resilience?

After being constantly on the brink of illness for a month, my body finally responded. This is part of the zone when you’re a parent with a young child and their child goes to either day care or play group. You know immunity is not an inherent thing. It is constructed and reconstructed through interaction with forms of masculinity. Thankfully, by now, I’ve become so good at taking care of myself when I’m sick, I often forget that it’s a skill that must be learned and that only comes with practice. This was instrumental in living independently for almost a decade. I learned to follow a simple rule when my body is at its most fragile. I am a mother myself. I have so internalized my mother’s behavior towards me when I am sick that I simply repeat it. Even if I’m lacking energy, I stand by the stove and make myself ginger tea. This is part of the healing process. As I’m writing, I’m making chicken soup, my favorite remedy for such a terrible cold.

I was recently listening to an episode of a podcast called The Shift, hosted by Sam Baker. It is specifically designed for the 40+ female audience. I’m not there yet, but I’m close enough to the summit to connect with its message. The episode in question featured a food writer and home chef named Bee Wilson talking about how cooking helped her heal after a divorce. I was sweeping the floors because I took in everything I had learned from the experience in my life when her husband, whom she had been with since she was 19, suddenly left her. She remembered her mother, who had a great reputation as a home cook. Nevertheless, after her father’s departure, the daily menu changed significantly. It was a surprise to him that whatever his mother cooked was in accordance with his father’s taste and preferences. I have noticed this time and again. I have noticed how married people cook very differently for themselves than for their families. When alone they often take a ‘do it’ approach, as they rely on cooking for a person or family as a default mode.

I wonder how many of us really grapple with the question of why we cook the way we do. How is our appetite and our style of caring for our physical needs shaped by the environment we grew up in or our experience with cooking as children? Many of my friends in Delhi who lived alone almost always hired cooks. I’ve written about this before, given how pressed we are all for time, this kind of service feels more like a necessity rather than a luxury. Never being financially stable enough to afford such a service meant I was always solely responsible for my own care. I had to strengthen my relationships with my vegetable and fruit vendors, butchers, fish vendors. Maintaining my own kitchen involved a large social network. Cooking for myself meant planning different menus than the ones I used to eat at my parents’ house, because I didn’t want to be stuck eating the same thing two days in a row. I learned to be inventive with leftover food. I learned to add flavor to the food that was dear to my tongue. Most importantly, I allowed myself to shop for beautiful materials. It wasn’t always easy to make ends meet. But I realized that cooking for yourself doesn’t mean depriving yourself of luxuries. I always got good smoked bacon, the best cuts of meat, rocket leaves, cherry tomatoes, avocado, figs, balsamic vinegar and good quality olive oil. Having these items in my pantry increased my enthusiasm for cooking.

In the podcast, Bea Wilson talked about another aspect of cooking that turns people off – washing up afterward. Perhaps because it was considered such a natural extension of the cooking process in our house, I never thought twice about it. In fact, when I invited friends over for dinner, it was my favorite part of the evening. I will wait until the last guest has left to start cleaning the house. I’ll pour myself a glass of wine or whiskey, listen to a podcast or playlist, and systematically clean. It was always this high. There was a time or two when I hired someone to do it, but I always regretted it afterward because I felt like I had robbed myself of some kind of hidden joy.

All this is to say that we rarely think about what it means to be flexible in the kitchen, taking charge of feeding ourselves. Waking up in the morning and soaking a cup of rice while making coffee or planning the weekly menu and preparing accordingly. Cooking is the first thing we become content to outsource to someone else, forgetting how important it can be for maintaining our sense of responsibility and taking care of our bodies. Because they deserve such care and affection.

Discussing the life and times of the Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a distinguished art critic and author of A Handbook for My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are personal and do not represent the views of the newspaper.