Cooking with Friends

In the time of Covid almost everything has gone virtual. That includes time spent with friends.

What my friends and I have found as a great way to connect, and learn something new as a bonus, is cooking together once a week. As a caveat I have to admit one of my friends is a chef so we defer to him about almost everything and let him tell us what to do but, if I’m being frank, sometimes that is the best part. Cooking where you are trying new and sometimes unusual, dishes can be a mess sometimes and can turn out awfully wrong. However, cooking those same meals with a chef is an entirely different matter.

While the delicious food is clearly a benefit of being part of a cooking group it is equally valuable to get to spend time joking around and laughing and sharing our days while creating our meals and then sitting down to eat together afterward.

I’m not sure what it is about sharing food with friends that feels so healing to me but it does and I love it. We’ve cooked everything from scallops to gnocchi and PadThai to fried chicken and steak to enchiladas. We make suggestions to see what appeals to the group and doesn’t exclude anyone in particular. There are times allergies have kept me from cooking something, like scallops, and my pescatarian friend refrained from cooking steak but generally we all just find ways to cook part of the meal or to substitute something we can’t eat (or can’t find in the grocery store) with something we can. There is something so normal about picking what to consume, and doing that with friends makes it a lovely escape from the rest of the week and all of the things that a typical Covid week entails. Doing things with friends, particularly when you can’t actually ‘see’ them is a relief from the feelings of isolation that it’s so easy to fall into.

If you know the feelings of isolation and anxiousness I’m talking about then you might find it interesting that I’ve just tried EFT or Tapping. More on that next…