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Learning to Cook After Divorce
As my marriage fell apart, I turned to my family’s mealtime routine to keep myself grounded
In 1999, I got engaged to a man I’d known since sixth grade. We were born 15 days apart in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in houses “across the park” from one another. Our best friends in high school were sweethearts, and even when I moved away after college, I often found myself wondering about him. When I returned home for grad school, we reconnected and fell in love.
Our early years of dating and marriage were content and sweet. Before we married, he bought a house, and I witnessed him throw himself into learning to cook. I loved the intensity and engagement I saw in him. He started watching the Food Network — Emeril Lagasse and Sara Moulton. He pored over cookbooks and cooking magazines and quickly became an amazing home cook. I loved his love of it. The night we got engaged, he made beef Wellington and proposed in the kitchen.
At first, I felt that his cooking was symbolic of the nurturing man I’d married; it was his way of taking care of me. I’d never really learned to cook and mostly made things like baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese. Every so often I’d try a more “elaborate” recipe, inviting friends over for a 25-year-old’s version of a dinner party — maybe I’d make some…
