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I Ruined My Passion for Food by Monetizing It
It took me three years to realize not every hobby needs to bear a dollar sign
I live to eat. I have few photographs from my childhood, but there’s one of me whisking eggs, preparing to fry up chicken cutlets. I am 10 or 11, which year I can’t remember, wearing a purple sweater with white hearts. Begging my mother to get an action shot — me and the whisk. Me dredging the cold chicken in breadcrumbs and flour. Me laying them down gently on the frying pan. Me smiling at the hiss and spit and smoke rising out of the pan. Then there’s one of all of us, tucking into our food. Our faces slick with butter and crumbs.
We painted those days in sepia.
I wasn’t a child who longed for toys — I had so few of them. Big Michelle whose one eye fell out. A Chinatown Cabbage Patch Kid when I wanted the real thing, a premie. But if you wanted to make me happy you’d buy me a book or a meal. I’d dress up in my Easter Sunday clothes — that one white skirt suit I owned with pale pink and turquoise trim. The pleats of the skirt made me look like a human accordion. It was one of those rare evenings we were flush with cash and driving to King’s Plaza for a steak dinner.
