I've talked about my love of cooking quite a few times over the past year or two but I feel like it's about time I gave the topic a post of it's own. I've been cooking since I was maybe about 7. Funny thing is I would have started learning to cook way later if it wasn't for my tiny hands. Sounds mad, I know, but the whole reason my mum started to teach me to cook was because my guitar teacher told me my hands were too small to play guitar. I stopped guitar lessons and instead, used that hour every week when my sister was learning guitar to cook with my mum. Pretty much fell in love straight away. For years after that I would sit in the kitchen when my mum was cooking and help her chop the veg and stir pots (nothing that would let me mess up the dinner) and gradually started getting my own kids cookbooks and cooking myself. My mum taught me the soup recipe she'd used my entire life, - one she learned off my auntie - and the rice pudding she made most weekends. I never really stopped cooking but I did lose interest for a while. However, lately it's become one of my absolute favourite things.
I really feel like cooking is form of self-care. You're taking time out your day to make yourself a meal, not just throwing something in the oven last minute when you realise its dinnertime, but actually making a conscious effort to fuel your body. Time spent cooking is time away from work, studying, stress or literally just your phone. That time is so valuable. For me, cooking has really helped my relationship with food. I posted about my efforts to fall back in love with food a few months back and since then quite a lot's changed. I genuinely think cooking is the main reason for that. Cooking for me is time away from whatever's on my mind where I can just focus on what I'm making and whatever music I've got playing at the time. Spending time making myself and my family food makes it so much easier to then sit and enjoy it - I know what's in it, the effort that went into making it and I feel like I deserve that food. It's also super rewarding to make a meal for people you love (and that should include yourself!) and hear what they think of it. Cooking's just the best.
Catriona xo