I Dream of Food

my complicated and healed relationship with food

 bananas are for kittens, but we still have fun in the kitchen!

The other day, passing my pantry, I felt a well of self-love so strong that I instantly stopped what I was doing, and thought: I have arrived.

I have also had a complicated relationship with food. This is why: Of all the things that could indicate one has “arrived” in life (that lovely feeling of fullness, contentment, wellness), lately this arises in the kitchen.

Love is: A pantry of Ball Jars filled with home-made paleo-nola, gluten and sugar-free springerle cookies, and lots of buckwheat for waffles (we grind our buckwheat flour from the seed, in the Vitamix; the result is a light, fluffy, and not at all dense or mealy flour. Imagine an earthy pastry flour.)

Love is: A full refrigerator, carefully created by me - with handmade items like: fermented purple cabbage kraut with ginger, carrots and radish (so good on taco salad night), oil cured olives, dairy-free cheeses, grain free bread, homemade mayonnaise (we always make our own), a Ball Jar full of homemade roast chicken salad. Want to know the biggest MAGIC of all (for me)? Not only is my kitchen well-stocked, I can eat almost anything in it.

What I once thought would exist only for other people – a well curated kitchen, well-nourished home – I have created. Food I never thought I’d be able to eat - waffles! muffins! chocolate chip cookies! - I can now eat. Love is my favorite buckwheat blueberry muffins, and buckwheat waffles. And coffee.

Love is having a well-stocked kitchen. Love is feeling the care within the home. Love is choosing what to eat, and also being ABLE to eat it.

As I contemplated this intense feeling of contentment, I wondered at it, at this full pantry and refrigerator that offers me so much comfort, at this warm feeling, inside, that says to me: I am here. I am good. I am safe, I am okay.

The Warm Glow of Other People’s Kitchens

Have you ever coveted what another has? Maybe got a little jell-y (jealous), even? I once asked that question on my Facebook page. Several people replied they hadn’t. I didn’t believe them! It’s human to want what you don’t have; it’s how we aspire to fill the Swiss cheese holes in our lives.

Me? I coveted other people’s well-nurtured home lives. I coveted the girly-canopy beds of my childhood friends. I coveted their parents -who took them places, who willingly took them to playdates and to the mall, and also picked them up on time. I coveted their full pantries, and their pot roast dinners.

It was as if, in its absence, I had developed a homing device for wholesomeness, love and care (I can still tell, as an adult, if you had a great childhood- or not. It’s an instinct). I would enter other people’s homes and instantly register all the small details, the energetics of the space, the clean and well-lit spaces. I grew up with parents who both had Scorpio Rising, and Scorpio Moons. I am a beauty-loving Libra Rising. The homes we lived in were dark, cluttered and felt oppressive to me. I craved cleanliness, and light.

The bare bones truth of my experience is that as hard as I tried, as a child, to make my childhood home light-filled, clean and comforting… I couldn’t. My memories of feeling well-fed and nourished do not involve my own home.

I loved staying overnight at Brandi’s house. Brandi’s house felt earthy, and was full of the light I craved. Aside from the really cool feature of her property containing several detached structures that meant Brandi essentially lived in her own house while her parental units lived in a separate one (whaaa!?), Brandi’s house felt like a true home. The kitchen was yellow and warm. There might’ve been a couch in it, or I might’ve made that up in one of my frequent imaginary visitations, because Brandi’s house, her mother, their kitchen, have played an ongoing role in my healing work. I’ve shamanic-journeyed back in time and recreated or reimagined myself there, many times.

Food was a part of my experience of Brandi’s house: Whole grain toast with real butter (real!), late night pasta drenched in said butter, salt, pepper and sprinkled with parmesan cheese that turned ooey-gooey when hot, and oh, the Velveeta shells and cheese! Which I also enjoyed cold, on mornings after staying out too late the night before. But moreso it was the energetics of caring which communicated that full-belly nurturing was being served here. Brandi’s mom was a gardener and acupuncturist. The smell of mysterious kinds of Chinese herbs often wafted through various parts of the house, as did moxa smoke. All of this said, to me: We heal here. We nourish here. How I wanted to belong to that home with the yellow kitchen and hardwood floors!

Another strong memory of being well-nourished was very literal. Sarah’s cupboards were full of foods that I would never ever see at my own house: Sugar cereals, chips, Rice a Roni, and other packaged foods…They were chock full because she had an older brother, and growing boys seem to eat a lot.

Her brother even had his own cupboard (imagine it!), and so, when we’d drive off campus, to her house, for lunch, I’d beeline for her brothers’ cupboard. He liked Chili cheese Frito’s; that’s how I discovered I did, too. Her brother liked Pop tarts, of all kinds. Through rigorous and very committed testing, I discovered that my favorite pop tart flavor was cinnamon. Her brother liked sugar cereals. My mother did not allow sugar in our house, except on a rare occasion: We were allowed to pick out one sugar cereal on our birthday. So, this is why I didn’t have to go through twenty years of trial and error to discover that I really enjoyed Peanut Butter Captain Crunch (thank you, Pete).

When Sarah’s mom bought us a George Forman grill, we learned to turn 2 pieces of white bread, a jar of tomato pasta sauce, and cheese shreds, into a delicious pizza sandwich… or several. Grilled cheese was good, too.

…As you may realize: Nourishment has not come easy for me in this lifetime.

~

Have An Apple!

Holy f***! Please don’t ever tell me to have an apple!

This is what my mom would tell my sister and I when we were hungry. It was always those red apples that came in a big bag, to hide their bruises. But no one in my house actually wanted to eat an apple. So, the apples would sit for an inordinately long time, and go soft and mealy. You know what? No one likes soft and mealy apples, either. But when we were hungry, my mom just loved to tell us this. Or, “have a piece of fruit”. Fruit. I remember overripe bananas. I remember yellowed-brown pears that had gone south a week ago. Is this why I don’t like most fruit? Is this why I’m allergic to most fruit, today?

Growing up, I remember stealing lunch money from my father’s wallet and spare change- which he dumped out nightly on the top of our entertainment center. Why not just ask my father for money? Because, as with many things I stopped asking for, I knew the answer would be “No”. I needed an alternative to the peanut butter sandwiches -made from that natural peanut butter, the kind you grind at the store, that was so dry and mealy that even jelly couldn’t improve it (more kudos to Sarah’s household for introducing me to Skippy and Peter Pan peanut butters). Of course, the bag lunch would also include a piece of the aforementioned fruit. This is why I stole lunch money.

I still wonder today: What was that mysterious eating disorder my mom had- the one that no one named? Because she must have had one. I just don’t know what to call it. AND: Why were we not asked what we liked and wanted to eat?

(A more difficult aspect about becoming a stepmother to three teen girls raised by highly functional adults was the fact that the girls WERE asked questions like: What would you girls like to eat? -AND- listened to. Never having been given that kind of agency, well…this brought up “stuff” for me.)

The odd thing is, no one seemed to notice that us kids were under-nourished, neglected. Occasionally, a concerned person - a guidance counselor, or family doctor - inquired about my low body weight, or poked around to try and gage whether I was anorexic (I am naturally petite). Because they only asked me, I felt judged and ashamed. No one bothered to go straight to the source.

Well into adulthood, I heard this from my father: My parents closest friends apparently did notice that when my sister and I came over for dinner our eyes lit up at the food: All we wanted to do was eat their food! They also noticed that when we’d go on family outings with their family, their kids had snacks galore, while my mother typically packed us one sad little plastic bag of nuts and raisins. These family friends – did they ever express their concern to my parents? Or, was this told to my father in 20/20 hindsight? Idk. I’m honestly not sure why my father even told me this. It was painful to hear.

~

I Dream of Food

When I became ill at age 17 (read about that here), I was eventually tested for food allergies by a naturopath. All of the foods I was allergic to were *exactly* what I ate -the foods my mom fed us. This isn’t uncommon; it’s why you really need variety in your diet. Food allergies can develop from malnutrition, and from not eating the things that your own unique body needs (in Nutrition school, we call this bio-individuality). That’s what happened with me.

I had candida (yeast/fungus overgrowth), too. So I was also sensitive to many things like processed foods, sugars, fruits, fermented anything, cheeses, milks, vinegars, alcohols, soy, and all forms of grains (though that wasn’t common knowledge back then; how I wish it were! It was why I was “on diet” and disciplined, I still felt so badly. That was confusing and awful).

Candida overgrowth created many icky symptoms: Low energy, anxiety, depression, fatigue, headaches, sore throat. This condition also made my body a suitable host for other disease states - like intestinal parasites, and chronic UTI’s. Candidiasis is caused by a combination of poor nutrition (processed foods, sugars, malnourishment) stress, overuse of antibiotics. It creates “mystery” symptoms that are only resolved through a clean diet.

It is a *bit* easier to deal with clean eating, today. All the things we have available to us today- the gluten free, keto, paleo-oriented foodstuffs that make such restricted eating a bit less time consuming- did not exist then. I had to cook all my meals from scratch. People also didn’t have the social awareness about food sensitivity and allergies - awareness that celiac, gluten sensitivity, paleo, keto diets, have fostered. It’s a lot easier, today, to figure it out at, say, a restaurant. Back then, it was hard. I couldn’t join in the food - at restaurants, events. I avoided food-related trips and outings. When I brought my own food, I felt like a weirdo. People would say to me, “Ooooh, what are you eating? What do you have there? That looks so good, so much better than what I’m eating! It must be why you’re so skinny!” Ohhhhhh please, stop. The unwanted food and body attention made me feel wrong and different.

Another problem, back then, before the “whole foods” days was that almost all food was processed, filled with crap, and the simple whole foods didn’t taste very good. Nowadays many more people understand that less ingredients means more: Taste, health, and flavor. But back then, it wasn’t so.

So, in a weird catch-22, with the Candida diet (still in its nascent understanding, then), I was back at square one. Eating food I didn’t want or like!!! Unfair? Yes. Especially to a young woman in her late teens and 20’s. Like Sisyphus toiling the rock uphill only to have it roll back down again, or Prometheus, whose liver was pecked out every day only to have the cycle begin all over again, this felt like some odd form of torture to me.

…I had freed myself from my family, only to enter a new, but familiar, prison.

…This is why my nighttime dreams often still involve food. Most of my life has involved figuring out how, what, *and if* to eat. It goes something like this: I am hungry, extremely tired, and surrounded by food I cannot eat. Last night, the dream took place at my Uncle’s house, where there was a wedding reception and all the focus was on preparing the food for the bride and groom. The guests lined the hallways of the house. All were looking at elaborate menus, but I couldn’t figure out where the food was. Eventually, so tired, I gave up, so I went to a bedroom… but the door wouldn’t lock. Other people kept disturbing me (also continual dream-figures; chaotic people that I can’t tune out, or shut out). Often, the food dreams involve a banquet, or an abundance of food, but I can’t eat any of it. Or, it’s a pre-packaged or industrialized food situation I’m facing –in a mall or airport food court, for instance, a place where I can only find processed, sugar laden, food.

I process childhood trauma in my dreams; I work things out, there, I guess, because that’s how its been for me, for many years now. But even though I’ve healed, my dreams keep replaying the past. I am waiting for the happy ending I’ve created in real life! For the magic Super Goddess Self I am now to show up and kick some dream butt! Last night, in a dream-adjacent, I was teaching a group of children who were all thumbs, how to make an apple pie. It never came together. I still woke up hungry. But hmmm, that was a new angle.  Maybe I’m getting closer? I’m waiting for that dream victory.

…But Don’t Invite Me To Italy

Today, I don’t feel deprived, nor malnourished. I make food that tastes great -without stuff that others lean on. I have figured out how to eat, intuitively; by this I do NOT mean “eat what your body craves”. That is not intuitive eating! (You could be craving a thing because you have candida, you’re addicted to sugar or you aren’t eating in a balanced way.) Intuitive eating is this: I listen inward for the right moment, the right environment, and right way in which to eat a thing. When I get a YES, I eat it. When something’s off (maybe I’m with the wrong people, or my stress has been higher), I get a NO and I don’t eat it. This means I can eat chocolate cake, or have a cocktail, when the moment’s right. This also means that there is never a NO for me. Eventually, I can eat the thing. There is no more deprivation. This took me decades.

Thanks to healing this very complicated relationship with food, neglect, and nurturing, l am in balance with food, and my mind/body connection today. Obviously, none of this happened easily for me. But it did happen.

Some people go through their entire lives without forming a healthy relationship to foods that nourish them. Still others go through life allowing other people to produce and cook the food they put into their body, so they can go about their busy lives accomplishing more important things. Some folks never deeply consider what they are eating, let alone read ingredients on the label, and many never will. I met a man, a nutrition scientist (!), who did not read food labels until his 70’s- when he was diagnosed with a disease.

Many, in America, are divorced -and I mean utterly disconnected from- their food, and how it affects their life force, immunity, energy and well-being. I feel food is the number one culprit in many of what America defines as “medical conditions”. “Obesity studies” make my eyes roll because I just don’t buy into them as true medical conditions. I view these diseases as dis-eases of our environment, the industrialization of food, and Conditioning/untruths.

My family’s lack of awareness didn’t happen in a bubble. We are all victims of neglect. I deeply feel America must change its relationship to food. Industrialized food has created problems. With misinformation, lack of true food education… In our current food culture, it is STILL extremely hard to do what has taken me decades to. I eat in ways that separate me from the mainstream. Many, many, times, I have felt alienation (and hunger) -at the restaurant, holiday, birthday, event dinner, or on the trip; many times, I have chosen to go hungry rather than eat something that will make me sick.

Early in our marriage, John and I went to Rome. That memorable trip was one of several where I dragged him from restaurant to restaurant looking for something I could eat. I cannot tolerate breads, yeasts, cheeses, sugar, fruits, alcohol, milk or tomato – so, what the actual f*** was I supposed to eat in Italy? We both got really hangry, and this resulted in a huge fight, but also in a great turnaround. Because the next time we traveled to Italy (Milan), I printed out multiple copies of business sized cards with all of my food sensitivities, written in Italian, which the waiter could take back to the kitchen. I even laminated them. I had minimal blood sugar drops on that trip. That was my best trip to Italy yet. I’ve also come back from trips to Italy with raging candida/yeast infections because I threw my hands up in the air and just ate.

I no longer go to Italy. My friend recently invited me. I declined.

me, in Venice, Italy -before I swore off Italy entirely

~

These Nourished Days

Other people’s home- their kitchens, with homemade foods that communicated, I am paying attention to what you need; I care about you - used to be wrapped in a rare magic I didn’t know how to obtain.

This is why, when I see the sea-glass colored jars in my pantry today, filled with treats that I can eat, my heart flutters. I give myself a moment. Because it’s not just about food. They are symbols, of abundance, of nourishment, of safety and feeling okay…. They trace a line way back to my younger self.

Because of, or in spite of, all that I’ve endured (probably a bit of both), I’ve created a well-nurtured life. In all of the categories that matter to me, I am living “the good life”. What I most wanted then, for myself, I now have.

Like little altars, the home-made foods say: I am figuring out how to give you, Jessica, what you most need and want. They have become that imbued with personal meaning. This is how I get to receive the nourishment that I once missed —and how I am making our life more delicious every single day.

***FYI: Paid subscribers will receive a Non-Candida Causing Sugar-Free Chocolate Chip Buckwheat Cookies recipe THAT TASTES AMAZING!***

my pantry

Oh coffee, how I love you. I love this machine more than any other...

My light-filled kitchen and dining room. We choose to eat outside, in Hawaii.