I Cook Because I Eat: Why Can’t Heroines Cook?

 Olivia Benson of Law & Order SVU prepares 

Salade Nicoise for herself and her son. He won't like the olives.  

I don’t understand why liberated heroines can’t cook. We need to eat, therefore, we need to cook. Eating fast food is not the answer. The more time you and your family spend in the kitchen cooking real food, the less time you and your family will spend at the doctor’s office and the hospital.

I'm a 50 year macro, wife and mother who cooks from scratch at least three times a day and has over 80 articles and 7 books to her name, plus I ran my own PR business for 10 years. (I started late in life.) I make it work. Why can't strong women heroines face up to the challenge of feeding themselves and their families?

I’m tired of that old feminist chestnut of “Oh! I can’t cook!” I get it, Simone de Beauvoir! It can be perceived as “endless drudgery and domestic slavery.” Wake up! Every person who told me that they couldn’t cook is - guess what? Dead! One woman, a minister, told me she wouldn’t even butter bread because it was too much like cooking. What do you think happened to her? She dropped dead in her driveway on her way to teach an aerobics class to heart patients.

Wake up! Every person who told me that they "couldn’t cook" is - guess what? Dead! 

Often, I’ll be watching - or trying to watch - a TV show about a female detective when suddenly her kid asks for breakfast or dinner and there’s no food in the house. “What?” she calls from gruesome files of dead victims, “What?” “There’s no food!” the child repeats. “I’ll go shopping after work.” Somehow, we know that’s not going to happen. I lose interest in the show.

Another one asks her son if his girlfriend’s fake breasts can make coffee. I’m thinking, are you seriously telling me you can’t make a cup of coffee for yourself - by yourself? You can solve crimes but you can’t boil water? Again, not going to watch it.

I tried to find one. I Googled TV detectives that cook. Lots of TV detectives. None cooking. I did get The Gourmet Detective. My heart skipped a beat. But, no, she’s the detective, he’s the professional gourmet come to lend a hand in the investigation.

Eliminating those fictional heroines who actually are chefs like Jane Adler (played by Meryl Streep) in It’s Complicated and Kate (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) in No Reservations, I found two who cook - one, Erica Barry, playwright, (played by Diane Keaton) in, aptly named, Something’s Gotta Give. She’s not intimidated by the kitchen. She can whip up breakfast, dinner, snacks, picnics at will or romantic midnight scrambled eggs for two when the electricity goes out. The other is Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hartigay) of Law & Order Special Victims Unit. Olivia does not consider herself to be a very proficient cook, but she takes time out of her busy crime-solving, victim-soothing job, to bravely go where most TV detectives don’t dare to go, into the kitchen to make dinner when she and her son, Noah are hungry! Wow, what a concept!

I have found a few in real life.

Thinking back over literary history, I realized Emily Dickinson was the family baker. Her father insisted on only eating her bread because he liked it better than any other. Emily loved baking. She made cakes, cookies, candies and puddings. She often made treats for the local children, and because she was so reclusive, she would lower a basket full of cakes from her window to the children. Emily became quite famous in town for her baked goods. It was only after she died that her sister, Lavinia, found almost 2,000 poems that Emily had written, some of them started on the backs of recipes or random kitchen wrapping papers. Emily once said, “People must have puddings” and “Love’s oven is warm.”

Emily Dickinson

“I am going to learn to make bread to-morrow. So you may imagine me with my sleeves rolled up, mixing flour, milk, salaratus, etc., with a great deal of grace. I advise you if you don’t know how to make the staff of life to learn with dispatch.” 

                                                                    – Emily Dickinson to Abiah Root, September 25, 1845 (L8)

Emily Brontë

writer, poet, baker

Also, the Brontës - Charlotte was challenged by the kitchen, but Emily was something of a kitchen goddess, it seems. The village prized her bread over that of any other baker. She also cooked mutton as a common staple, turnips, potatoes and apple pudding. Oh, and she gave us the incomparable Wuthering Heights among other works, including lots of poetry. 

Jane Austen knew food.

Jane Austen’s household was humble and crowded with sisters, cousins, nephews, neighbors and friends. Many hands pitched in and Jane displays an intimate knowledge of many dishes in her work, often ascribing certain dishes to certain characters to make a point: “a pyramid of fruit which confronted Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley…Or of the cold beef eaten by Willoughby on his journey of repentance to see Marianne.” (Maggie Lane) 

Okay, so I found some heroines that cooked and somehow managed at the same time to be superhuman in their work. If artists in real life can feed themselves and their families, why can’t fictional ones?

We all need to cook! Our health and the health of our families and our future as human beings depends on our ability to feed ourselves and keep ourselves well.

Even if you hate to cook, you still need to find a way to make meals successfully. I find that planning meals around brown rice really works for me - brown rice and broiled salmon with broccoli; brown rice and pinto beans with guacamole, tortillas and salad; brown rice and broiled chicken with potatoes and green beans, you get the idea. It’s quick, simple, tasty and nutritious.

Give me heroines who can feed themselves and their families good quality food! Do we have to go all the way back to Nancy Drew? She not only stopped the investigation for meals - she did the dishes too! And, might I add, still got her perp!

P.S. Laura of Garden Answer is a busy, professional gardener, mother and wife who stops work to cook meals for herself and her family; she tries to make a new recipe every week. 

Laura and her son making chicken curry with ingredients from her garden.

Here’s a list of busy professionals who love to cook - stars who cook!

 Also Gwyneth Paltrow and Emily Blunt (stars love her roasted potatoes!)

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Pre-Pre Natal Care for Women and Men - Get Ready For Your Baby!

 

Did you know that childbirth is supposed to be an orgasm? No pain. Only ecstasy. 

This body that we nurture every day nurtures us back. We are stuck in it. And sometimes, it’s scary. But it doesn’t have to be.

I’ve written about health many times and it all boils down to something we all learned in school. Again, I’m saying it - it seems to me there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who paid attention in school and those who didn’t. Maybe you had a loser for a teacher and you coasted but you missed out on a lot that could be useful to you now. That loser had a lot to teach you.

In all of the pandemic, I only heard the WGBH Boston journalist, Adam Reilly* say what we all learned or should have learned in school (I’m paraphrasing) - “All you really need to do to strengthen your immune system and be healthy is to eat real nutritious food, get enough sleep and exercise.” 

That’s three things.

And, nobody does it.

I was lucky. I was brought up Italian, eating only whole foods from the Italian market in Haymarket Square, Boston. My grandfather and my uncle used to go every week and come home with wheels of cheese and hunks of prosciutto that the family shared. Every day was a fresh loaf of bread. Fresh fruits were abundant. My mother even foraged for dandelion greens. My grandmother grew her own arugula, tomatoes and red pepper in a tiny backyard garden in East Boston. 

My mother cautioned us to never eat anything from a factory! Candy was kept on a top shelf. Anything packaged was suspect.

I was thirty-one years old and eight years macrobiotic when my daughter was born. She popped out after only four hours of labor; she was pissing, pooping and screaming! I won’t say it was painless, it wasn’t. I did it without drugs and there comes a point, where, like Catholic saints, you pass the pain and drift into nothingness. 

Ecstasy.

But it’s not about pain or no pain. It’s about health.

A friend of mine delivered her ninth child herself behind the counter of her natural food store. Health.

Every time I see a commercial for children in a cancer ward, I shudder, because NO CHILD SHOULD HAVE CANCER! No, nor any other degenerative disease.

It is my opinion, and you can take it or leave it, that eating junk food as food causes cancer. “White bucket” fast food restaurants, where the ingredients come out of white plastic buckets instead of out of the garden or from the farm. Anything made in a factory - artificial “food-like substances” (Michael Pollan*, author, nutritionist and chef) that we eat as our daily food.

Feed yourself and your children real nutritious food! Everyone must learn how to cook! Every man, woman and, yes, every child as soon as they are able! 

Cooking is not an inconvenience. It is an opportunity. A chance to get better, to be better, to feel better!

NYC Mayor Eric Adams healed his diabetes and the blindness in his left eye 

by changing his diet 

What is good nutritious food? Here is the Food Pyramid we learned in school. It changes sometimes, but the basics remain the same. In macrobiotics, we lean more toward whole grains and vegetables with occasional servings of chicken, fish, dairy and eggs.

Here’s what to do for good pre-prenatal care and it’s the same for everyone’s everyday health. You don't have to be macrobiotic to be healthy! Get as close to this as you can!

Pre Pre Natal Care For Women and Men: Get Ready For Your Baby!

1. Learn to cook real whole foods. When you are a young adult (think high school!) stop all junk food as food. Junk food is a cheat meal, only for fun, not for food. Children cannot develop properly on a diet of sugary breakfast cereal, pizza and hot dogs. Not in life or in the womb - you must pre prepare for pregnancy to give your baby the best chance at health! 
2. No drugs, limit alcohol. 
3. Cut your sugar intake in half - or more!
4. Get enough sleep. This can be hard when you work and commute. But you must try.
5. Exercise. Keep your body as strong as possible. Keep your blood circulation pumping! Your own good quality blood made from good quality food is the best healing medicine for you!
6. Drink plenty of water! Water is the only drink that can truly hydrate you! Dehydration can sneak up on you.  It has many, many symptoms that can be dangerous!

Drugs, alcohol and sugar take from the body. Obviously, no hard drugs which can take your life as well as your baby’s life. Use other medications in moderation at all times. (Check with your doctor.) Nowadays women do not drink alcohol when pregnant. Many women also stop coffee. My mother never heard of these restrictions. I did drink coffee and everything was fine. I was advised by my European macro friends that European women drank good quality beer while pregnant to ensure plenty of breast milk. So, I drank the best beer I could find at the time, Pilsner Urquell. I had lots and lots of milk! I was also advised to eat a fermented soy product called natto for skin health. “No stretch marks,” commented the intern who cared for me. The doctor wouldn’t come down to the delivery. He said since it was my first, there was plenty of time. An intern and several nurses attended me. Initially, I had planned to use a mid-wife with doctor/hospital back-up. However, the doctor felt my hematocrit (number of red blood cells) was too low for mid-wife conditions. I studied what that meant and adjusted my diet to change my condition - I reduced my coffee intake and I made a hearty miso soup for my lunch everyday, bringing my hematocrit up to an acceptable level. The doctor couldn’t believe I had done it.

Be advised - 

Pre-Prenatal care also applies to boys and men! When they eat, young men are preparing the quality of their sperm which contains the program of their good or bad health. When they eat, they are creating the quality of their health which they are passing to their child! How many young men do I see leaving the convenience store at lunch time with a huge bag of chips and a huge bottle of Coke! Not a nutritious lunch for a working man! We could go into the eating habits of our mothers and fathers which also influence the quality of our health. Again, I was lucky. My parents’ generation did not have a lot of junk food around and most of it was too expensive for them to buy. That’s no longer true.

We are further and further away from that naturally healthy generation. Possibly four generations removed. In many cases, we could go back to great-great-grandmothers before we reach someone who cooked real nutritious food every day. And THAT effects our health, our children’s health and our future children’s health! The good news is, the body reacts quickly and powerfully to good food and good habits; we can reverse most damage that has been done.

This body that we were given. This body that we nurture will nurture us back.

If we don’t take good care of our body, it will seem to attack us one day when we least expect it.

But, it’s not an attack, it’s our body reacting to what we gave it.

Give your body goodness. Get ready for your baby!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

• I am not affiliated with journalist Adam Reilly, nutritionist Michael Pollan, or Mayor Eric Adams, and they have not endorsed me in any way. 

• I am not a doctor, nor a medical professional. I’m just a person who has enjoyed the benefits of a macrobiotic diet and lifestyle for nearly 50 years. I’m 70 years old and not on any medications. When something goes wrong, I am able to consider what caused it, make adjustments and watch things heal. However, by law, I am required to say that any advice you see in my blog is not meant to be followed without first checking with your doctor.

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines.