Feeding Myself

I noticed something when I sat down to lunch.

A wide blue bowl held a quarter of a roasted sweet potato, soft avocado flecked with salt, a little drizzle of olive oil, sunflower seeds, eight Castelvetrano olives. A big mug of hot water with lemon, steam rising.This didn’t look like the lunch I usually eat.

I’ve long loved sweet potatoes, especially the plump ones with bright-orange flesh.

I’ve always loved olives.

We had an avocado tree in the backyard of my childhood home in Southern California. Sometimes, I’d pick up one that had fallen to the ground, take it into the kitchen, and open it with a table knife.

Salt. Spoon. Buttery-green smooth taste.

The tree stopped producing avocados after my little brother took a croquet mallet to it, repeatedly, every day, every week.

I understood. You have to release it somehow.

Everything on that plate was one of my favorite foods.

What was different?

Dinner, just after 6 pm.

The dishwasher needs emptying. I’ll get to that later.

What can I make that will feed us fastest?

Thank you to my Sunday self for roasting sweet potatoes and putting them in the refrigerator.

Heat up the sweet potatoes in the microwave. Grate some sharp cheddar cheese. Pour salsa into a bowl. Spoon sunflower seeds into a mug.

Sweet potatoes done. Heat up the roasted chicken.

I split open each roasted sweet potato, top to bottom, leaving both ends intact. Plump them up.

Everything goes on the dining room table, including the sour cream and the pitted Castelvetrano olives.

Buffet.

Time to eat!

D takes a small piece of sweet potato, a couple of tablespoons of chicken, and a handful of olives. Puts them on their plate, with nothing touching. L takes much of it and moves to her place. My husband tops his sweet potato with chicken, salsa, olives, and cheese.

I choose a fat-knuckled fist of a sweet potato, then top it with one of everything. Maybe more cheese?

It has been a hard, long day. Eating feels like relief.

I deserve this.

An hour later, I complain to my husband that I’m sleepy and sluggish.

Recently, something arose in me.

I’ve never known how to eat to truly feed myself.

I’ve only ever known how to eat to soothe myself with food.

From the time I was 6, I have been chasing flavors — salty, earthy, sugary, bitter. Fats.

Oh, the salty fats and sweet baked goods.

I’ve shifted the way I eat, many times.

When I was young, I could only find joy in the taste of the Kraft macaroni and cheese I made myself or the Clark bars stuffed into the freezer.

Once, I ate a bite of raw bacon, standing in the light of the open refrigerator, deep in the night. Something horrible had ended moments before.

I dared myself to do it because it went against every rule I had been taught.

I no longer eat powdered doughnuts or big bags of Doritos.

I wrote 3 cookbooks with my husband and led the charge to create great gluten-free baked goods in this country. Our entire lives together swirled around food.

Food has been an inordinately large part of my life.

Luckily, the more clear I become, the more I value vegetables. Kale, turnips, dark red cabbage — these fill more of my plates these days.

But there’s one thing I haven’t learned about food yet.

“You’ve always used food to soothe yourself, Shauna.

I’m sure you’re not alone.

But I wonder — have you learned to eat food to regulate your nervous system instead?”

I have never thought of the way I eat as a tool to calm my nervous system.

Now, I’m taking the baby steps.

What if I truly fed myself, simply, slowly?

When I looked at the lunch I had set on the rumpled-orange tablecloth, to eat by myself, I stopped and framed the shot with my fingers.

No need to take a photo for Instagram anymore.

Phone in another room, music off, no television show on.

I shimmied my fork to cut off a bite of sweet potato, avocado, olive oil, and sunflower seeds.

I took a bite. Closed my eyes. Tasted it.

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