It Got Deep Between Food and I

As I write this, I'm watching hockey and concocting away in the kitchen. Rice and garlic vegetables on the stove, salt and vinegar kale chips in the oven, and I feel the most serene I have all day. More and more often, I've been finding myself going to the kitchen to settle down if my mind starts racing. I've found that a finite task when I'm feeling anxious helps far more than sitting and worrying would.

Woody Allen doesn't look like he agrees.

But this is the latest stage of a very long relationship that I've been in...one with food. In my life I've gone from expecting it to be there, to taking what I ate into my own hands (by relieving my dad of lunch-making duties at the age of 9 after continued dissatisfaction with his strategy), to building an admittedly unhealthy relationship with it late in middle school and into high school.

Then, I enrolled in Principles of Food Preparation in my sophomore year of high school. Cooking to me was something that always sort of just happened, and it was never anything I was going to be particularly good at. But something changed that quarter. For the first time, I started to love cooking, and love discovering new foods. I remember finding a foolproof apple crisp recipe, learning to make bananas Foster on a Foreman grill (that dish needs to make a comeback, now that I can use rum instead of rum flavoring), and made some pretty good friends in the process.

That interest has expanded into a few other areas. I took and fell in love with cake decorating. I love to bake, and find healthy ways to do it. I have learned so much about nutrition and how to stay healthy, and now share what I've learned with the readers of MyStudentBody blogs. And in this latest stage, learning how to eat gluten free, I'm making a very important connection between what I eat and how I feel.

So Woody Allen, settle down. Drop the lobster in the water. And relax :)