Cooking is the way to my heart

The pandemic was one of the hardest obstacles I have had to overcome in my life. Cooking with my dad helped me to find the most unexpected tools to overcome these challenges.

Two years ago, I was unaware of the difficulties yet to come. I was simply glad to have an extended march break. This attitude soon took a turn for the worse. As I began to watch the news more and started to see the people around me getting sick, the pandemic suddenly began to feel real. Before, it had been easy for me to ignore when it was on the other side of the world. It felt distant. Then my school was closed and, suddenly, the news about the pandemic was local, not international.

My school stayed closed for the rest of my Grade 10 year. Then as a misfortunate cherry on top, I was unable to visit my family in New Brunswick. I still tried to hope for the best in the next year. Unfortunately, I was completely crushed.

My 11th-grade year was full of just as much uncertainty, as I flip-flopped between online and in-person learning.

School had always been a constant in my life, and the contrast of it then being completely unreliable made me feel disoriented in my own life.

I began to lose hope that life would ever return to something close to normal. I struggled with loneliness. I went from seeing my friends almost every day to not at all. I was entirely unprepared for it. I felt like I had missed out and lost so many memories with my friends and family.

One of the few good things that I focused on was that my dad was working from home. I got to spend much more time with him, and this was ultimately what helped me cope.

Since both my dad and I had more free time, it was the perfect opportunity to bond more, which we did through cooking. We would pick out recipes we wanted to try and go shopping for the ingredients together. Donuts, English muffins, bread, dinner rolls, pizza, burgers, cake, cookies–you name it, we made it.
One of my favourite recipes we made was pumpkin cream cheese swirl muffins. Not only were these muffins delicious, but I had such a great time making them. From throwing flour to laughing at each other's mistakes it was always a good time.

When my dad and I planned to cook together I always knew it was going to be a good day. It helped bring happiness into my life and made the emotional troubles of the pandemic easier to manage. When I look back on the earlier days of the pandemic, I try to emphasize my focus on these positive times.

As I think back on all the wonderful memories I can almost taste the mouth-watering blueberry muffins we made. When the beep-beep of the kitchen timer sounded I remember immediately running to the kitchen. I was so excited to try one that I stuffed a bite in my mouth knowing it was hot, forcing me to toss it around in my mouth to cool it off. I had never had a blueberry muffin so good. My favourite part of this memory is the smile and high five my dad and I shared for the tastiness that had come from our hard work.

Even the memories of failed recipes bring a smile to my face. My mum was always our guinea pig and the faces she made when she tasted food that we had messed up always made us laugh so hard.

The kitchen was always a disaster when we were finished, but the mess is always worth the product.
Cooking with my dad helped me create some semblance of a routine in a time of great turmoil. I made sure to bring cooking into my daily life because of the joy it brought me. It let me focus on ways I could enjoy the present instead of always looking toward a future that didn’t feel so bright. As it seemed that every time life would start to return to normal, another lockdown would happen.

Instead of constantly worrying about when, or if, things would ever get better, I was instead focusing on frosting a cake just right, or carefully cracking an egg. I was enjoying the taste of delicious food or contemplating what ingredient was missing.

Even though these joyful moments were small in comparison to all the bad, collectively they added up. Taking a few days of the week to cook with my dad throughout the pandemic added up to many hours spent laughing and having fun. It is these moments that helped give me both the strength and the hope to get through the pandemic. Through cooking with my dad I recognized the importance of self-care and how truly vital it is to take time in life to find and do the things you love.
In times of great difficulty, it will always feel like the bad outweighs everything else, but through the enjoyment of tiny things, it is possible to tip the scales in the favour of good. It is of the utmost importance to discover the simple pleasures of life. During a pandemic, this is more difficult, but they are always there. The time must simply be taken to find them.

Life provides us with many chances to create and enjoy happiness. Usually, these opportunities are completely free or cost little money. For me, it was cooking with my dad, but for someone else, it could be reading a book. Happiness can always be found or created in life. And this happiness can conquer all.

Cooking with my dad not only brings a smile to my face but also a smile to my heart. So always remember to do the things that make your heart smile.