Eat, Love, Gain

Peeja Blackbird
2 days ago
4 min read

My relationship with food has always been a journey of ups and downs, from a very young age I was responsible for taking care of myself, that included feeding myself.

As a child of the 1970’s in downtown Columbus, Ohio, there weren’t a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables around on a regular basis, it was mostly canned Campbell’s Soup or Popeye’s Puffed Wheat if I was lucky, it was a brick of government cheese in the fridge.

Don't get me wrong a few times a year my grandparents would make a show of taking the entire family out to dinner and we would go to whatever restaurant was cool and exciting back then so I knew what good food tasted like I had no concept of how it was created I lived with a woman who thought crushing up potato chips on everything turned it into a casserole.

Food became a solace for me very quickly my comfort food was a baloney and cheese sandwich on Wonder Bread or Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Pies, anything that made me feel something “positive”.

I went through a large portion of my life young life just kind of being numb but there was a warmth and a comfort in the junk food and it made me forget for a moment about the fact that I didn't have friends that I was awkward that I was carrying these horrible events in my head so why not have a pile of white castles or a giant bowl of SpaghettiOs because those things made me feel good and nothing made me feel something.

I didn't learn that food was something that could be enjoyable or something that was more than just a comfort for my mind until I would go to the South in the summer I distinctly remember pulling up to my grandparents’ house and my grandfather had Peach trees and my sister and I would get out of the car and we would run to the Peach trees and you could grab a Peach and you could almost taste the sunshine there's not many things you can say anymore that you can taste the sunshine in it wasn't all chemical though it was just warm delicious fruit I watched the chefs in my family and it was men and women who cooked creating just really delicious dishes my great grandparents ran a pig farm and they were still going strong up until I was 13 years old and food was about community to them food was about breaking bread together and setting aside whatever ails you or is on your mind because no one can say that eating good food doesn't bring a smile to your face.

My Step-Mother was an excellent cook the women that surrounded and were part of my family in the South all knew how to cook it was just what you did but they were good at it too and the other part of it for me is I didn't care about how it was made or anything like that when I would go down there in the summer when I was a kid it was just about hot food it was clean kitchens it was a different kind of deliciousness that I had not experienced outside of fast food or going to restaurant with people.

I ended up going to live with my dad when I was 15, I felt I had to do whatever I could to make sure that there would be no reason that they would want me to go back to Ohio.

When it came time for my sister and I to learn the basics of cooking I was 15 and she was almost 14 and my sister avoided it, she wanted no part of “Domestic Arts”. I did it because I thought this would make my stepmother like me, I didn't understand that she liked me for who I was anyways, actually loved me, I was just lived in that constant fear so she started teaching me how to breakdown a whole chicken how to make biscuits how to shop vegetables how to make macaroni and cheese where your sauce is fresh and over time I realized it was something that I actually really enjoyed I was a teenager I didn't care and then I when I went to college I wasn't cooking I was eating ramen like every other person and eating crap and this whole time I can feel that I'm getting heavier but that was like, Oh, well that's just the way it's gonna be for me”.

It just wasn't conceivable to me that anything that made me feel good when I ate it would be bad for my body I know that's a load of BS but that's how I justified it to myself a lot of the time I feel that didn't really start to love cooking until my kid was young we didn't have a lot of money had to figure out how to make meals for the family that would stretch and then it became like a challenge to me and I look forward to the challenge I'm not going to lie there have been points in my life where I have wanted I would fight tooth and nail to have to cook but now I'm at the point where my cooking feeds my art feeds my garden which feeds my cooking and I really feel that if we can change people's relationship with food and the process of preparing food then we can change the belief system that the only people who can eat healthier rich people that's not true at all so I just feel that we have to start the journey of changing that relationship because if we can show people how amazing it is, to come up with an idea for a recipe how great it is that it didn't cost $50.00 to feed a family of four that's my goal with cooking.

Peeja