Becoming my own person in the world all with the help of food and my mother.

Story by Emily Erskine

I never wanted to be like my mother, I always just wanted to be like me. I grew up stubborn in that way, refusing to admit I could share features with anyone other than famous comedians or writers. It turns out, she and I are two slices from the same cake. Both of our love languages are food. I think it’s our superpower.

“Baking is an exact science, never just eye-ball it. Always make food a priority. You can never go wrong with garlic and onions in any recipe.”

My mom’s words flow comfortably in the back of my mind, as they are the rules of the kitchen she always taught me.

As a kid, in the middle of the night, I would try to recreate her recipes. I would scour her favorite cookbooks, determined to have my chocolate chip cookies turn out precisely the right way. They were always slightly off from my mom’s, but slowly they became my own. Now, as a 22-year-old, I spend any second of the day that I can in the kitchen, trying to create my own traditions and staples that someday my kids will long for.

Both of our love languages are food. I think it’s our superpower.

My guilty pleasures include Italian food, anything involving chocolate and all of my mom’s holiday dishes. My first month in college was my first experience making her spaghetti. Throughout the years, the mushrooms have been omitted for my pleasure, but the secret ingredient remains the same: grape jelly. My part-Italian boyfriend scoffs at the idea of no meatballs and such a bizarre condiment in the sacred sauce, but I rejoice in the sweet taste of my childhood in every single bite.

I realized early on in my college dorm that I could whip up almost anything I wanted in my tiny kitchenette without much effort. I didn’t understand why others around me depended so heavily on Top Ramen, cereal and McDonald’s. As it turns out, college students are more influenced by their surroundings than I thought. If nobody else is cooking, others follow suit. Dining halls are convenient. Digging for recipes, buying ingredients and setting aside time every night to prep is not.

For me, cooking quickly became the one thing that kept me grounded every day. It was the one guaranteed constant in my life in a time where everything felt like it was changing.

In a world where everything revolves around speed and convenience, I find comfort in the stillness of my kitchen. When I’m baking or cooking, the only thing in the world I have to worry about in that hour is trying not to burn the food. My small, worn-in, apartment kitchen with notes from my friends on the fridge, burn marks in the oven and my mom’s hand-me-down KitchenAid, is the place I find the most peace and control these days.

Home cooking is a cultural touchstone around the world, but for some reason not in the United States.

The United States spends the lowest percentage of income on food consumed at home. As a country, we’ve removed ourselves so much from the cooking process that most of us wouldn’t even know where to begin in the kitchen. Roughly 23.5 million Americans live in “food deserts” where they don’t have access to the supplies they need.

Eating at home is about so much more than just mastering the art of cooking. It’s about people, relationships and meaningful time spent together.

Visiting home on breaks always reminds me of why that time is so special. At home, I love to be propped on a bar stool across from my mom, watching her prepare grandiose meals.

Our house is the place where nobody goes hungry. It’s a rule. We laugh over meals and rejoice in the moment that we all get to sit around the dinner table “bullshitting,” as my parents like to call it.

One time, I watched my mom from the other end of our kitchen counter as she stirred a huge pot of spaghetti. It’s enough to “feed a whole army” she said jokingly, as she scooped it onto the plates of my brother’s actual Army friends who came home with him on leave.

“‘To break bread together,’ a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, provoke laughter,” journalist Victoria Pope wrote. No matter who or where you are, no matter the circumstances, whether you have new or old friends, the urge to sit together and eat will always shine through.

In a world where everything revolves around speed and convenience, I find comfort in the stillness of my kitchen.

It’s intertwined so deeply in my identity, I wouldn’t know who I am without it. I lure my friends over as often as I can for home-cooked dishes, and I make baked goods for any and all who will try them. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even taste my own recipes, because I’m too busy running around the table giving people seconds and making sure they have all they need. My mom and I often joke that after we’ve made extravagant meals, we lose all appetite for the food and instead satiate our appetite of hosting and feeding others.

The happiest I ever feel in life is hearing the sounds of people laughing and talking over food in my home. That would be a meaningful answer I could give when asked what I thought the meaning of life was. In a time where so many are intolerant of others, food has the ability to produce change. At the end of the day, we all enjoy a meal, we all have a family and a desire to be with those we love.

To become a woman alongside my KitchenAid is to see myself as more like my mother than ever before, and I think that’s enough for me.