Feelings of emptiness are normal, even expected, in times of stress and uncertainty. (“Stress and uncertainty” being at best a tiptoeingly diplomatic way to describe the experience of the past year in America, with its million and a half dysregulations, both ambient and immediate.) But isn’t cooking supposed to be a balm for this sort of thing? Much of the happiness I used to find in cooking—even when cooking became, sort of, my job—was rooted in how tangible it was, in both labor and outcome. Simple, repetitive, semi-creative tasks like kneading dough and chopping dill are supposed to thaw us when we’re frozen with existential dread, to ground us in the tactile world, to give us a sense of power and control over the small universe of the cutting board and the stovetop. This makes sense, I know it’s true, and I guess I remember living it, and believing it. But lately it feels awfully far away. I don’t want to re-center myself by being mindful while I peel a head of garlic for the hundred-and-thirtieth day in a row; I want to lose track of myself entirely by playing seventeen straight hours of a battle-strategy video game in which I get to be a military-school professor with magical powers and green hair.

Rosner is one of my favorite contemporary writers and this piece underscores why. Her beat is food, something I also care about more than the average bear; she often writes about broader social issues and how those are reflected in how we eat, where our food comes from, and who prepares it. There’s nothing more broad and social this year than the pandemic, yet she inverts the lens here for something intensely personal and resonant.

I cook for a lot of reasons — it’s a hobby that I get to write off as a chore, for one — but mainly it is, as Rosner says, a balm. When I’m feeling ground down or particularly low or dark, one of my mental tricks is to simply roast a chicken. It takes a bit of time, but is often something I can pull off on a weeknight, is unobjectionable among my family, and something I can pull off without thinking about. It’s always deeply satisfying to dig into the crispy skin and juicy dark meat of a thigh, along with maybe some roasted new potatoes and an arugula salad, and helps to reset my well-being.

That trick’s all but failed me as the months have continued. I’m still cooking as much now as I was when it felt like such a discordant luxury, back in the dark days of March and April when so much of the world was breaking. And I’ve been in the kitchen since Sunday, preparing the usual Thanksgiving spread despite the fact there are only three of us this year. The biggest change I’ve noticed is my complete inability to think holistically about food, specific meals, prep — any of it. This ebbs and flows but for the most part that muscle is simply exhausted, to the point I’m not even sure I remember what that was like. I’ll know I’ve re-established normal when that feels effortless again.