E4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019
current recipe-driven food con-
tent, either reproachful (in the
BuzzFeed manner of “Things
You’re Doing Wrong” articles) or
competitive (the quest to have the
most photogenic, correctly fin-
ished dish on Instagram). She
assures readers that her recipes
can be executed while tipsy, left
on the stove too long and made
with ingredients you can be care-
less in measuring.
Most of her repertoire is for
people who are short on time and
cash. Because, as Ta ndoh points
out in “Eat Up!,” that’s where
reality can put a pin in this other-
wise positive premise: “It doesn’t
help that the narratives around
cooking for pleasure — as op-
posed to cooking for sustenance
or money — are all rooted in
bougie rituals of going to the
farmers market, traveling the
world for recipe ideas, or spend-
ing an eternity making cute jars of
jams.”
In an email interview, she con-
fessed her own “inconsistent rela-
tionship with cooking.” Making a
quick weeknight dinner for one
doesn’t readily present itself as
the desirable option. What she
does relish are the more lavish,
time-consuming productions,
and for her, that means baking.
“The fact that the food I cook in
these moments isn’t daily fare,
isn’t just nutrition, doesn’t fulfill
any real purpose aside from plea-
sure — that’s precisely what
makes it feel good,” she noted.
“I’ve still got some work to do
when it comes to practicing what
I preach and rediscovering the
special moments in the everyday.”
She might start with toast. Ris-
bridger’s is heaped with black-
ened broccoli and almonds and
asks so little of us; it all comes
together in one roasting pan (or
baking sheet), crisping of the
bread included. Making toast
hardly seems like cooking at all.
But that’s the point, and this one
is quite the satisfying gateway;
you get some meditative chop-
ping in there, the rush of the heat,
and the dramatic, risky business
of charring. Still, you’re just mak-
ing toast. No big deal.
For some, toast may be too
much. Yang emphasized that de-
pression is different for everyone.
Ta king to the kitchen isn’t a uni-
versal panacea. But even if we
haven’t all been diagnosed, we do
face worry, despair and estrange-
ment, and we have to eat to sur-
vive; it’s as good as any endorse-
ment to at least try cooking. It
might just save a life.
[email protected]Druckman is editor of the upcoming
book “Women on Food.”band’s job.
For Risbridger, the key to en-
couraging a restorative approach
to cooking is not to enforce it as
another avenue for achieving per-
fection. That makes “Midnight
Chicken” an antidote to so muchHong Kong-based food blogger
Mandy Lee will be published in
the United States. Lee records her
agonizing displacement — and
the cooking that helped her en-
dure it — when she moved from
New York to Beijing for her hus-someone that you care about
them in a different way that’s not
verbal, or like physical touch, is
also really powerful and thera-
peutic.”
Leite agrees. When he’s “cook-
ing for family and friends, it is still
a source of joy,” he said via email.
“I feel a sense of self-care by car-
ing for others.” And he still reaps
the centering rewards of prepara-
tion. “A ny r epetitive task seems to
help me. Chopping vegetables,
stirring risotto, whipping cream. I
kind of flip into kitchen hypnosis,
if you will. It keeps me very much
in the moment — mindful.”
Cooking can also serve as a
powerful and restorative way to
handle loss. In July, former crimi-
nal barrister Olivia Potts released
“A Half Baked Idea,” her memoir
about baking her way out of grief
and lawyering after her mother
died. Along the way, the British
author discovered that cooking
could be “meditative” (setting
marmalade to simmer), “enliven-
ing” ( toasting spices in a dry pan),
“exhilarating” (flambéing crepes
suzette) and “pure joy” (“the mo-
ment that honeycomb billows”).
“There was something calming
about recipes — a set of instruc-
tions that, if followed properly,
would result in a predictable out-
come,” she writes. “Everything
around me was dissolving into
uncertainty, but here, conse-
quences followed neatly, from ac-
tions.” N igella Lawson has posited
that cooking can be a form of
keeping the deceased present and
said that writing her first book,
“How to Eat,” allowed her to con-
tinue her relationship with her
mother, who died when Lawson
was 25.
That same book helped fellow
British cookbook author Diana
Henry through her postnatal de-
pression. Similarly, in Chrissy Te i-
gen’s second cookbook, “Crav-
ings: Hungry for More,” she
opened up about her postpartum
depression and acknowledged
the role cooking played in getting
her back into her normal routine.
In Henry’s case, it was less about
the actual cooking and more
about the anticipation of it. “I
contemplated the lunches I would
make when I felt more up to it.
Things were going to be all right,”
she wrote in an essay for the
Te legraph last year. “Many —
mostly women — have used ‘How
to Eat’ not just as a cookbook but
as a balm during periods of de-
pression, divorce or illness.”
“Midnight Chicken” seems
poised to emerge as a balm for a
new generation of cooks. And it
might be the first of many. Next
month, “The Art of Escapism
Cooking” by Ta iwanese-born,better state of mind.
It i s cooking as self-help a nd, as
the book’s introduction presents
it, “a kind of framework of joy on
which you could hang your day.”
Cooking is also, she emphasized
in an interview, a “broad church”
with “room for everybody,” and
this is especially important be-
cause, for her, it is “always bound
up with mental health and self
care, but in a very basic sense,”
which, she distinguishes, is not
the same as “bubble baths and
shopping.”
Discussions of maintaining
physical and psychic equilibrium
that revolve around food have
tended to adhere to one of two
tropes: those endorsing the
health benefits and balancing
properties of particular ingredi-
ents or types of dishes, and those
justifying indulging in “comfort
food.” The first is tinged with
obligation and virtuousness,
while the second often seems to
bear the taint of guilt. Neither
implies pure, unfettered enjoy-
ment. Both are fixated on eating.
Before “Midnight Chicken,” cook-
ing itself had mostly been left out
of the conversation, at least in
cookbooks.
Beyond cookbooks, a number
of writers have touched on the
positive psychic effect preparing
food has had on them. Ruby
Ta ndoh’s recent book “Eat Up!
Food, Appetite and Eating What
You Want” wields pleasure as a
weapon against the restrictions of
the health food and diet indus-
tries. It’s aimed at eaters, but she
doesn’t leave out cooking alto-
gether. She says her own relation-
ship to cooking corroborates the
results of a 2016 study that found
young people who participated in
quotidian creative hobbies —
such as cooking untried recipes —
saw a more noticeable “upward
spiral” in their well-being, inven-
tiveness and positive energy than
those who hadn’t. “Just taking a
half an hour out of the day to be in
the kitchen cooking, experiment-
ing, tasting and feeling can be
enough to drag me out of the
slump of my depression,” Tandoh
writes.
Like Ta ndoh, David Leite,
founder of the blog Leite’s Culi-
naria, has been open about his
struggles with mental health. In
“Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of
Food, Love, and Manic Depres-
sion,” he recalls his first profes-
sional culinary job, as the family
cook for a college professor. He
found that arranging his ingredi-
ents in the right order (what the
pros refer to as mise en place, or
“put in place”) provided a “kind of
pleasure,” in that it allowed him
“to impose control and order on
something” even when he
couldn’t do the same for himself.
“A t times, rare and unexpected,
I’d feel small, almost impercepti-
ble shivers of happiness,” he
writes.
Ann Yang, co-founder of Misfit
Foods, sees her relationship to
cooking as “not about control at
all.” In July, she penned an essay
for Bon Appétit in which she dis-
closed she had been diagnosed
with depression and, at 25, decid-
ed to step away from the success-
ful business she built to take care
of her mental health. Making
meals for friends is one of the
activities she has identified as a
productive way of managing
stress and a sense of alienation.
Distinct from baking, she said
in an interview, cooking involves
“being very comfortable with am-
biguity” and “the idea that things
might not turn out as you expect-
ed them.” The feeling of achieve-
ment that comes with the comple-
tion of a task — and one she can
execute in a set amount of time —
helps her. “It has the same sort of
creative satisfaction of painting,
but on top of that there’s this
additional gratification, sense of
accomplishment and peace
around taking care of people you
love,” she said. “Being able to
really feel like you can express to
DEPRESSION FROM E1
‘Midnight Chicken’ offers recipes as prescriptions for happiness
Blackened
Broccolini and
Bittersweet
Almonds on Toast1 to 2 servings
This may not seem like
much, but tender stems of
roasted broccolini combined
with garlicky oil, lemon juice
and red pepper flakes — all
piled on toast — might be the
platonic ideal of a simple din-
ner for one or two people. It
comes together quickly, is fill-
ing and deeply satisfying, and
doesn’t shy away from flavor.
Adapted from “Midnight
Chicken (& Other Recipes
Worth Living For)” by Ella Ris-
bridger (Bloomsbury, 2019).Ingredients
l^1 / 4 cup sliced almonds
l4 tablespoons extra-virgin
olive oil, or more as needed
l2 garlic cloves, peeled and
lightly pressed
l8 ounces broccolini
l^1 / 2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
l^1 / 2 teaspoon red pepper
flakes, or more as needed
lFreshly ground black
pepper
l^1 / 2 lemon
l2 to 4 slices good-quality
bread
l^1 / 4 cup freshly grated
Parmesan cheese (optional)Steps
lPreheat your oven to 400
degrees; position the rack in
the middle.
lMeanwhile, in a dry, medi-
um pan over medium-high
heat, toast the almonds,
shaking the pan every so
often, until they are golden
brown with a few burned
bits, about 7 minutes. Trans-
fer the almonds to a small
dish.
lUsing the same pan, add 2
tablespoons oil and the gar-
lic to the pan. Return the
pan to the stove top and set
it over low heat. Cook about
3 minutes to infuse the oil
with the garlic.
lSpread the broccolini on a
large, rimmed baking sheet
and pour the garlic-infused
oil over (transfer the garlic
to a cutting board), shaking
to coat the broccolini. Sprin-
kle with the salt, red pepper
flakes and a generous grind
of black pepper. Squeeze the
lemon half over the brocco-
lini and shake the pan again
to distribute evenly.
lRoast for about 15 minutes,
until the broccolini is tender
but not soft and the fronds
at the ends start to brown
and get crispy.
lNestle the bread slices
among the broccolini and
drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil.
Return the sheet to the oven
for 5 minutes more, then flip
the toast over and drizzle
with the remaining 1 table-
spoon oil. Roast for another
5 minutes, until the bread
slices are warm and slightly
toasted.
lDivide the toast between 2
plates. Slice the garlic cloves
in half and rub the cut sides
over the toast pieces. Pile
the broccolini on the toast
(you can also chop it into
bite-size pieces), pouring
over the garlicky oil if any
remains on the sheet. (Oth-
erwise, drizzle with more
olive oil.) Squeeze the lemon
half again, drizzling the
juice over the broccolini,
then add a pinch of the red
pepper flakes, if desired. To p
with the Parmesan, if using,
and the toasted almonds
and serve.
Nutrition | Per serving (based on 2
servings, with 2 slices of bread): 440
calories, 10 g protein, 26 g
carbohydrates, 34 g fat, 5 g saturated
fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 860 mg sodium,
5 g dietary fiber, 1 g sugar
Recipe tested by Olga Massov; email
questions to [email protected]LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST; FOOD STYLING BY LISA CHERKASKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBOB CAREY DEY STREET BOOKS
In his book “Notes on a Banana,” David Leite writes that
arranging his ingredients provided a “kind of pleasure.”SERPENT’S TAIL L EAH PRITCHARD
Ruby Tandoh’s “Eat Up!” wields pleasure as a weapon against
the restrictions of the health food and diet industries.GAVIN DAY BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
In “Midnight Chicken,” Ella Risbridger includes a recipe for
blackened broccoli and almonds on toast, above.BY JOY WILSON
You’re either a cook or a baker,
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Voraciously newsletter makes baking a piece of cake
TOM MCCORKLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST; STYLING BY LISA CHERKASKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST.
Grandmother’s Pound Cake is one of the recipes that you’ll get with
Joy Wilson’s newsletter for Voraciously.