the grief kitchen is open

goodbye, little meow ❤️‍🩹

💔

my cat, meg white, broke on through to the other side. i’ve been in the kitchen ever since.

the kitchen is the one place i’m not obsessively checking my email or comparing my body/career/life to parasocial relationships with internet acquaintances.

my phone serves two purposes in the kitchen: photographing food and playing lorde’s discography on repeat.

i lose track of time in the kitchen—the time i so desperately try to control in a color-coded google calendar.

by the time i’m done en la cocina i return to reality—my new reality without a cyclops kitty staring at me from the windowsill or wrapping her tail around my leg as she passes through.

my body aches from hours spent chopping and dehydrating and blending and pulverizing and sauteeing and fermenting and composting. body aches offer a visceral respite from heartache.

i then collapse into the couch looking at photos of my culinary experiments, feeling grateful that the writing advice i share with my students, let yourself write bad, translates to cooking, too.

i no longer worry about messing up a recipe or preparing something that doesn’t turn out “right.” ignoring my inner critic lets me get lost in the creative process.

there’s no room for perfectionism in the grief kitchen.

🥕🫜🍅

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🥕 below you’ll find photos from this weekend’s grief-fueled culinary experiments. maybe i’ll share a recipe in a future issue.

🫜 i’m teaching this class about card decks on wednesday if you want to join.

🍅 i’m running this two-week coaching sale to help offset our $5K in vet bills.

xo,

tawny

i dehydrated 4 of these trays, then pulverized the dried veggies into a powder.

roasted tomato and plum flakes

i lacto-fermented radishes, garlic scapes, and plums, dehydrated them, then pulverized into a delicious umami bomb.

i think meg knew that lorde’s music would heal me.