Kitchen therapy
Women keep a delicious lifestyle — in sickness and in health
My wife, Grace, and I had an expedited courtship, a real when-you-know-you-know situation. Within days of meeting, I filled up a sturdy canvas tote bag at my apartment and brought it to hers. It included some clean clothes, a toothbrush and my best Dutch oven.
My favorite pot and I were moving in, meaning Grace wasn’t just the woman I wanted to hang out with, she was the one I wanted to make a home, a life, with. She was the person I wanted to cook for every single day, which is the best way I know to tell someone how much you care about them.
During the first two years of our marriage, Grace and I shared more about ourselves through the things we cooked, and we expressed our love through all sorts of late-night grilled cheese sandwiches, bowls of pasta and tall stacks of pancakes studded with bananas and chocolate chips.
During the 2015 holiday season, just after our second anniversary, Grace started not feeling like herself. A number of symptoms including debilitating fatigue, body and headaches, deteriorating eyesight and unintentional weight loss brought us into a number of doctors’ offices. Grace was eventually diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
At the time, Grace and I, like so many people, didn’t really understand the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, let alone know that you could be diagnosed with Type 1 as an adult. Here’s the quickest explanation I can offer: They’re totally different diseases, and you can be diagnosed with either at any age.
I dove headfirst into figuring out how I could be most supportive. I turned, as I do in just about every single situation, to the kitchen, land of comfort and healing and life and where I have always felt a sense of control. (I know it’s an illusion, but let a girl pretend!)
While Grace can, and often does, eat whatever she wants, she seems to feel her best when she eats meals that are lower in carbohydrates, high in protein and fiber. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that I feel my best when I eat the same way.
We said goodbye to a lot of things we used to keep in our kitchen (I’m talking empty carbohydrates and processed, sugary treats) and filled the space they left with things that we also enjoy but don’t compromise our well-being. I kept cooking for her, for us, but traded things like mashed potatoes with bread-crumb-bound meatloaf for garlicky, creamy mashed cauliflower and what I have taken
to calling “confetti meatloaf” because it’s fun to say and it’s also dotted with colorful pieces of sautéed peppers and onions, finely chopped herbs and sun-dried tomatoes. Big salads with good dressings keep our meals feeling abundant, and we’ve learned that a handful of perfect raspberries is as good of an excuse for whipped cream as pancakes.
Three years into Grace’s diagnosis, our habit of eating fun meals together, and treating each one like an opportunity to throw a little party to celebrate love, has not diminished. I’m more grateful than ever for the food in our kitchen, the space we have to prepare it, and most of all for my wife, who still is, wink wink, just my type.
Turshen is the author of several cookbooks, most recently, “Now and Again: Go-To Recipes, Inspired Menus + Endless Ideas for Reinventing Leftovers” (Chronicle, 2018).