From Adys Kitchen

Category: Uncategorised

The First Thing I Ever Cooked for Myself. A story of survival, softness, and seasoning. I was eighteen, newly out, newly alone, and newly determined not to eat another packet of instant noodles. The kitchen was unfamiliar, someone else’s pans, someone else’s fridge, but I had a bag of potatoes, a packet of Mince, gravy granules and an Onion, along with a quiet kind of hunger that wasn’t just about food. I didn’t know what I was making. I rinsed the potatoes like they’d been through something, and back then dirty potatoes were cheaper, I peeled them with a blunt knife and fried everything in oil that smelled faintly of someone else’s dinners. I added Paprika because it felt like a decision. I added salt because I wanted to taste something and I pushed it all around the pan with wooden spatula my mother gave me, which I still have and use every day- a reminder of her love. It wasn’t a good dinner. But it was mine. That meal didn’t feed me in the traditional sense. It fed me in the way a first poem does, or a first protest. It said: you can make something out of what you have. It said: you’re allowed to season your own life. Since then, I’ve cooked thousands of meals. Some have been joyful, some have been grief-soaked, some have been shared with chosen family who bring their own spices to the table. But I keep coming back to that first pan of mince and potatoes. Because it wasn’t just food, it was a beginning. This blog is for anyone who’s ever cooked with what they had. For anyone who’s ever stirred a pot and whispered, I’m still here. For anyone who believes that food can be a form of resistance, of reclamation, of radical care.Welcome to my kitchen. Let’s cook something that matters.

Sep 21, 2025