When my brain is cooperating, I enjoy cooking. But as a neurodivergent person who lives by herself and absolutely has no idea what is presently in my refrigerator at any time (yes, even immediately after going to the grocery store) keeping myself fed has always been an interesting challenge that I attempt to hide from the world around me. I also tend to get stuck in eating the same thing over and over as many autistic folks do. Add to that the problem that meal planning sucks up the dopamine hit that preparing food should and my ADD has little to no motivation to do the task. That is not even mentioning my texture/preparation aversions.
Basically, food is a weird thing that I love and can also be an anxiety producing annoyance that I rarely have sufficient spoons to deal with in a way that leaves me satisfied.
When emmalita reviewed The Sad Bastard Cookbook I thought to myself, this sounds interesting. The ethos of the book is that there is a food preparation available for every taste and energy level. If you have no spoons, eat the peanut butter out of the jar. If you have a few spoons, maybe add some apples to that peanut butter. But the authors (and I) want you to have a set of skills and staples that will get us through a variety of days.
Did I walk away with huge takeaways? Not so much. A couple of things were unfamiliar to me or were ideas that I had not thought of before. Did I feel seen, much the way I did when I read How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis two years ago? Absolutely yes, and that alone is worth spending some time here. The authorial tone and illustrations are funny, wise, and deeply kind. It also helps to mainstream the sort of eating that this book has as its focus. These are struggle meals, many of us eat mostly struggle meals on a day-to-day basis. The idea that this is okay and can be made easier and healthier while remaining struggle meals is not what you find out in the world when trying to do the best with your limited resources. This book is not trying to change or ‘improve’ you; it is trying to change and improve your coping mechanisms – and that is a significant difference to me.
Oh, and it is available for free digitally if that fits a need for you. The artist collective behind this work (Night Beats) licensed the work under Creative Commons so printing it and keeping it is a totally legal thing you can do if you want. It is also available for purchase.
faintingviolet 