Food for the Brokenhearted

About two years ago, I started a draft of a post with this very name; Kiki had had her heart broken and asked me to post on the puku with some heartmending foods.. I thought I’d do something comforting, and then ask you all to tell us what your go-to comfort food was. Sorry Kiki, I never got this past the draft, until now.

I’ve written this post in my head about a hundred times over in the past couple of months, but the words are harder to find than I thought they would be now that I’m sitting here ready to write it. It’s quite simple really (and many of you already know): In March, Tom and I broke up, divided and packed up our 7 years of shared life, and said goodbye.

It broke my heart, completely and utterly and painfully. This probably needs no elaboration for most people – broken hearts are not so uncommon. But a smashed open open heart is nevertheless open, and openness is such a blessed state to be in. So, I let myself be brokenhearted, and here I am. Of course there a SO much more to that story, both gutwrenching and soulsoaring, but essentially, that’s where I’ve been the last few months. Thank you for still dropping by

As for Food for the Brokenhearted, I really wasn’t interested in any of the comfort foods I had thought would be Brokenhearted Food. I had my kitchen in boxes, unpacked in the new place, for weeks – in fact much of it is still packed. nibbling on fetta, sourdough, rocket and tomatoes led to.. boiling pasta: the first sign of cooking.

Then some real Food for the Brokenhearted: escape. I canceled meetings, got on a plane and met friends in Townsville for 10 days. I went to a tropical island (my tropical island! also OUR tropical island, but that’s ok too),

this bay is one of my favourite places on earth

I walked, I lay in the sun, I swam, I talked and cried and drank and laughed. This is Food for the Brokenhearted.

And we at pineapples on the balcony of our A-Frame.

Thank you Miss C for the invite/prompt, and everyone in the Ville for the aroha, laughs, beds and shoulders. And everyone in Sydney/London/NZ/Germany/Finland etc etc etc for the same over the past few months too – love you so much!

So back in Sydney (via a funeral in NZ), boiling pasta expends to sauteing something, a little foray of popping something in the oven (vegetables coated in miso), discussing blogging again, starting to read about food again, and digging through the boxes for a microplane, and then finally baking trays, I surprise Miss C with a text that I am baking and running late to meet her.

I’m baking, I’m taking photos, I am here. Thank you for being here too.

xxxxx z