seen a lot of posts about food as love since starting this blog, and made a lot of them too. honestly, it’s easy. when i say that, i don’t mean it’s effortless. it’s more that they’re pleasant to make - it’s nearly always a better experience to make something about love than it is to make something about hate or grief or pain, no matter how necessary or cathartic it might be. i’ve read so much about love expressed through food, within food; making food, sharing food, eating food that i find myself aware of it in my life now. i go to my parent’s every sunday for roast dinner, and sometimes my dad gives me homemade bread for my sandwiches, or my friend makes elderflower cordial and brings it round to share. if i get a cake, i tell my housemate so she can take it to work in her packed lunch. on pancake day, i had my mum and dad come round to my then-new house and made them more pancakes than the three of us combined could eat. it’s something i’m aware of, is what i’m saying. i’m aware of all of it, or i thought i was. and then, just now, it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps the reason i never make myself anything to eat beyond the absolute basics - chicken dippers cooked from frozen, tuna mayo sandwiches, the same bowl of sugary cereal every morning, store-bought cookies that never make me any fuller but always make me heavier - is because i don’t actually like myself enough to do it for me