food diary while in quarantine
by mary lawrence ware
(TW: potential triggering content regarding eating disorders, proceed with caution.)
Isolation is difficult no matter who you are. Being immediately removed from the lives we once knew can trigger different reactions. Sometimes being forced to cohabitate with your thoughts in such an intimate, enclosed, and unavoidable setting can lead to important realizations and inner peace. Other times it can be detrimental, leading to relapses, poor mental health, and overwhelming dread and discomfort. This is a piece about new hobbies, old habits, and eating disorders when quarantined.
Today I made my own pop tarts.
I am a temporary queen of the kitchen. Heralded for my abilities to spread butter across every problem presented by the pandemic, my talent for thinning the ever-thickened sauce of worry, and beating away the threat of the outside with a rolling pin and sprinkle of sugar.
In a week, without even moving from my own bed my home became a schoolhouse.
Then, after endless ‘bathroom breaks’ for vanity (because polynomials can wait), it morphed once again, almost like my own reflection; This time my home was a fun-house.
My body and mind and mind-body bridge have all relocated to different cabinets and have hidden themselves in the corners that are unreachable even with a step stool and determined grasp.
For lunch I tossed taquitos in a pan, flipping each with my fireproof hands letting the tickle of heat on my fingertips distract me from the racing grid of black and white numbers on the cardboard box.
At home, I am only accompanied by the buzzing of online school. The tremor of hunger roars louder than ever in my ear, and is inescapable when chained to my mind at arm’s length.
Today I ate so many goldfish in history I swore my stomach had doubled in size by the end of the period, tracing my fingers across the soft skin of the abdomen.
It was easy to ignore a plea for three square meals when jumping through an academic institution. The rush past the few bathroom break mirrors was ineffectual as I brushed past the girls chewing their lips in anticipation of my departure. The mirrors were simply an added decoration to routine. And the occasional snack on the way to class or questionable lunch meat seemed like second fiddle to the group chatter that surrounded it, droning on loud enough that the burning sensation of failure that bubbled in my esophagus couldn’t compete with a brain busy processing someone else's saturday-night mistakes.
Today I forgot to eat, too focused on trying to keep the butter in the dough cold enough to puff perfectly, running around rearranging the fridge and measuring chilled slabs of dough I felt myself nearly giving way. So preoccupied with perfection, only then did I realize my bittersweet mistake.
At night, a body so exhausted from being pulled and warped through every mirror in the house gives way in bed, illuminated by the translucent glow of cooking videos, hushed and calmed by a confident voice grating ingredients into steel bowls, prepping and sampling, providing the gentle release of the perfect pixelated profiterole.
Today I measured out pasta water for the sauce, my silky secret ingredient. “We’ve never eaten this well,” family laughs. “I’ll have to buy new pants by the end of this! I can barely fit in anything thanks to you!” and they pat me on the back with glee.
The shameful sound of my weight shifting down the silent midnight stairs spreads like wildfire up and down my back, like a sticky raspberry jam across two blushing biscuit-cheeks. The fridge glows, illuminated by the promise of private shame and relief. Besides, past a certain hour it barely counts.
Tonight I ate so much popcorn that my fingers swelled up from all the salt. I was so disgusted by their puffy state that I could barely be bothered by the sudden urge I had to use them to shove them down my throat and rip out the aftermath.
What to do when trapped at home with a ferocious dieter? The treadmill hums in the underbelly of the basement, gnashing its jaws and hoping to devour the next plate of the soft flesh that rims my thighs. She reminds me that metabolism doesn’t last forever, that perhaps I should be proactive for the future.
I simply nod, lethargic from my decadent four-cups-of-water lunch.
Today the kitchen remains clean.