I've had a joyful relationship with food for as long as I can remember. I loved to eat, and I still do, with wonder and a real hunger for the world. Sitting down to a warm plate, cooking something from scratch, and tasting how flavors come together has always felt sacred to me. Food is how I show care and how I feel connected to people. The world has never liked women who eat a lot, talk a lot, or take up a lot of space. I was healthy, maybe above average weight, and active. I walked, I moved, and I lived fully. The comments came anyway: the sideways glances, the smirks when I asked for seconds, the silence when I proudly served something I'd cooked. When I stood in the kitchen trying out recipes, some people saw indulgence where I felt joy. They turned it into a joke, a bad habit, something to fix. I felt alive, and I wanted to stay that way.
That's a big part of why I've always admired Anthony Bourdain. He traveled to eat, and he also listened. He sat on plastic chairs at roadside stalls, shared meals with strangers, and let food connect him to other cultures. That was the life I imagined for myself, full of flavor and presence. He's still a role model to me, for how he lived and for how he permitted other people to live fully too. I've read Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw. I also watched the movie Tony, and honestly, I think he'd be furious about it, because he hated showing himself off. In May 2026, I went to New York City and followed his recommendations. I ate in dingy shacks and small restaurants he once loved. I also ate at Carmine's, a family-style restaurant, and enjoyed it anyway. There I met a girl who had come with her mother and her uncle, and we became friends. Later we went bar hopping. It was the best trip of my life, and food was at the center of it, the way it always has been when I need to feel better.
Women still face an invisible pressure to eat quietly, talk gently, and want less. Somewhere along the way, femininity came to mean shrinking your voice, your hunger, and your needs, and anything bigger than delicate got called too much. I've always been hungry, curious, fierce, and full of stories. For a woman to be fully present at the table, to taste, to savor, and to laugh with her mouth full, is still a quiet rebellion. So yes, I love food. I love cooking. I love talking with my mouth half full when a story can't wait, and I won't apologize for it. Joy comes in every size, appetite is part of being human, and being fully, loudly, hungrily alive is nothing to be ashamed of.
