by Lisa Marie Lindenschmidt

My gramma stood at the stove, my plate in one hand, a huge spoonful of mashed potatoes in the other. “Say when,” she told me. After the first spoonful – which was roughly about a cup of mashed potatoes – I said, “When.” She said, “Hungh?” and feigned deafness… and continued shoveling the potatoes on my plate.

She loved me. This was her way of letting me know that she always had plenty to give me, that there would always be enough for me. The only way to get her to stop shoveling was to practically pry the plate out of her fingers and squeal, “OK! OK!” She always wanted you to feel like you were welcome and loved. Piling your plate high with delicious foods was just one of her ways of showing that.

The only problem with this was… that I knew the mantras. I knew that about halfway through I would start to feel full. And I knew what I would hear if I didn’t finish my plate: “No dessert unless you clean that plate. I don’t want you wasting all that food now.” When you’re a kid, it’s all about the dessert. So, I’d look down at my plate despondently and try to finish the food. The other thing that was at play here was that if we didn’t finish our food, my gramma would take it as a personal affront, as some indication that her cooking wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t good enough. This was tough for 9-year-old to unpack.

As I got older, I learned ways of speaking to my gramma that were compassionate, but assertive: “Hey, why don’t you get the baby’s plate ready and I’ll shovel my own potatoes, OK?” or “I just want a taste of that dressing. I’m saving all my extra space for some of your amazing desserts!” I got clever. I thought I’d handled it. Because this was just about appeasing my gramma… right?

Of course not. It never is. I got so used to hearing these mantras that I started using them myself:

• Always clean your plate.
• Don’t waste food.
• No dessert until you’re done with the meal.
• When visiting others, always eat what you’re given so as not to insult the host.

I got really good at subconsciously repeating them back and, I later realized, ingraining them at the deepest levels of who I am. Years later I would have friends over and would spend hours in the kitchen preparing beautiful meals. As everyone was sitting around the table, I would plate the food, always honouring people’s “when,” convinced I’d learned a valuable lesson. But at every meal, I began noticing something niggling in the back of my head. I heard little voices saying, “They didn’t really take much. Do they not like my food?… There’s a lot left over on his plate. Maybe I’m not really as good a cook as I thought…” Oh, NO! I’d turned into my gramma!

What would happen if I decided something radical? What if I began making meals for the sole purpose of enjoying making the meal? What if I turned my meals into an offering instead of a mandate? What if I invested in leftover containers? What if – and this one’s huge – I didn’t offer a dessert?!

Reclaiming my intentions around food preparation and food consumption has taken me years. I still get little twinges when someone says, “You know, I don’t really care for that” when someone tries one of my dishes. Now I either chalk it up to bad taste (just kidding) or talk to them about how they would improve it. It’s less now about ego and more about communication.

Because that’s really all these meals are… expressions of self searching for connexion.

Lisa Marie Lindenschmidt is a raw foods chef and teacher and owner of Rite Food and Company (www.ritefoodandcompany.com), which offers workshops on intentional and joyful eating. Lisa Marie and her homeschooled daughter, Mo, record a weekly podcast – called Sweet Peas Podcast – chronicling their raw foods journey together.