The (He)art of Eating.

M.F.K. Fisher (the delightful, quirky, and exquisite gastronomic writer) was once asked the following question: "Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do?" In response, Fisher writes that "the easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry."

I, too, am hungry.

"I'm hungry" is not a phrase I have used often in the past few years, certainly not with the full measure of gusto and delight with which I think it ought to be used. Like any other relationship that binds up my heart, my relationship with food has been as fraught with sorrow as it has been blessed with pleasure. You see, the anhedonia of depression is particularly cruel in shattering one's gastronomic love: thick stews lodge themselves in your throat; a delicate meringue is tasteless and empty; even water fails to quench your thirst. Add to this depression an onslaught of griefs and traumas, and the need for nourishment (that most basic mode of self-preservation) becomes the most terrifying and impossible task to fulill. But the effects of malnourishment, as I have learned, are never merely cured by the reinstatement of regular and nutritious meals. One can learn to tolerate eating again, and even regain nearly a stone in weight, but still feel as empty and lethargic as on days spent fasting. So to really love that which I once believed was my enemy--food--I must embrace it with the full arsenal of love that I can muster up from within myself.

It should be noted, lest it seem that I am new to the world of gastronomy, that I have always loved cooking. Nothing compares to culinary sensations, the sheer explosion of sensory stimulation that envelops me when I cook: the sharp twinge of burning eyes when confronted with a particularly potent shallot; the satsifying juice-rivulets that escape from a sliced tomato; the joyful hiss of butter hitting a hot cast-iron skillet. Those who know me best know the glint in my eye when I am working pie dough or arranging a salad. That "je ne sais quoi" of cuisine is, really, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness at its very best, and the stomach is satisfied even as it consumes by proxy with eyes, ears, and nose.

And so, I throw myself fully into the world of cuisine, knowing well that the grief of a collapsed soufflé or a small cut of the finger painfully betrayed by the acidity of a lemon is as apt to make me cry as anything else in my life; but for the love of food, and mainly out of a profound desire to learn to love myself, I shall valiantly meet those challenges with an open heart and an empty stomach.