WHEN FOOD LEARNED TO TASTE LIKE LOVE

Love on a Platter

When Food Learned to Taste Like Love

I am of the conviction that when one puts “LOVE” into food it does make things taste and digest better. Let’s take the example of a simple bologna sandwich where you take the time to -

• Spread the French’s mustard perfectly to all corners of the bread.
• Making sure the lettuce is crisp with no brown spots and the core removed. And the tomatoes and onions have the right amount of space between them and are sliced just thin enough to crunch into.
• Taking the time to toast the bread long enough and just so on all sides.
• Learning what your significant other likes and adjusting by just a bit to tailored to them. Like extra pickle chips or another layer of mustard
• The extra time taken to just make sure everything is done just so and the plating is done in such a way that its attractive to the eyes as well.

Love - is the meticulous attention to tiny details that add up to a higher grade of sandwich. That is how to serve on a platter and when you learned food taste like love.

Many chefs cook what they personally think and feel is good or what culinary experts or cultural norms say are good. While those things will often produce great food, by definition they’re never going to be more enjoyable to eat than cooking based on what the person eating the food will think is good, which from years of experience “cooking with love” is all about.

Reminds me of the standard steak debate... A good chef will cook a steak "how it's professionally meant to be done" and that's fine but somebody cooking with love will cook it in the way they know you prefer it... even if it's not the way they were taught is best or the way they prefer.

In fact when I hired new employees, I purposely would listen for stories about when they were cooking with a loved one. And realize that “love” is a very real ingredient in food.

Just like when my Auntie Grace would make a sandwich for my dad. She used the cheapest damn stuff - from a discount grocery store - on it – and my dad swears it’s the best sandwich he ever had. It was just a basic boiled ham sandwich with processed American cheese on Soft N Good white bread with miracle whip -which he didn’t even like. And yet no matter how meticulously I paid attention to how Auntie Grace made his sandwich I never seemed to match hers.

It Was Never Just the Food

And that’s where something deeper begins to show itself.

Because at some point, you start to realize…

it was never just the food.

LOVE ON A PLATTER is not so much about love as it is context.

Taste is not just something we sense with our tongue, our nose, or our palate—it’s something we create. It’s a combination of sensory input run through a matrix of our current and past experiences.

It’s why a cold beer tastes better on a warm summer night outdoors with friends…

or why your mom’s sandwich tastes better than a stranger’s.

It’s your love—and the experiences attached to it, consciously and subconsciously—that make the real difference.

And underneath that…

there is something even more subtle.

And Then Something Else Shows Up

Not as obvious.
Not as easy to name.
But just as real.

Because if food can carry love…

then it can also carry something else.

There are moments—not big, dramatic ones—but quiet ones…

where you don’t feel quite right in yourself.

Where something feels off, but you can’t immediately point to it.

Maybe it’s that feeling of being a little too much in a room…
or not quite enough in another.

Maybe it’s holding something back…
or trying just a little harder to be received well.

And in those moments, something shifts.

You stop relaxing into the experience…

and start paying attention to yourself.

Not in a grounded way—
but in a watchful way.

Where Food Enters the Space

And food has a way of entering that space.

Not loudly.
Not as a decision.
Just… there.

Sometimes it’s:
“I just want a little something.”

And sometimes it’s not even about wanting it.

It just feels easier to reach for that
than to sit inside whatever that feeling is.

The Difference You Start to Notice

There are times when you eat something and you enjoy it.

You chose it.
You tasted it.
You had the experience of it.

And it ends there.

Complete.

And then there are other times.

Where it’s less:
“I want this…”

and more:
“I need something.”

And it doesn’t quite land the same.

When It Doesn’t Settle

It’s almost like you’re trying to take something in…

but it doesn’t fully settle.

Like it doesn’t quite reach the place you thought it would.

And so the experience doesn’t close.

It lingers.

Emotional Eating as a Belonging Problem

Because maybe…

it was never just about the food.

Emotional eating is often mislabeled as a failure of discipline, when in truth, it is a longing for belonging.

We have been taught to fight our hunger, but the First Law of Spirit—Acceptance—invites us to do something more radical:

to meet our hunger with presence rather than judgment.

By the Law of Correspondence, the chaos at the table is simply a mirror of the displacement in your spirit, reflecting a hunger that food was never designed to fill.

We are not just craving calories;

we are craving the felt recognition of our own inherent worthiness.

Healing Through Expansion, Not Restriction

The work of healing is not found in the restraint of the plate, but in the expansion of your own identity.

You have been searching for a tribe, a place, or a person to confirm your existence, but that search has kept you in a state of seeking—a vibration of lack.

Through awareness, something begins to shift.

You are no longer reacting—you are noticing.

And in that noticing, space begins to open.

You do not need to edit your soul, shrink your truth, or justify your place to anyone.

You are not a fragment looking for a home;

you are the home itself.

The Power of I AM THAT I AM

When you stand in the power of the original declaration—I AM THAT I AM—the external search begins to lose its grip.

You no longer need to bargain with food for a seat at the table of belonging,

because you recognize that you are the table, the host, and the guest all at once.

Closing: Where Nourishment Truly Begins

True nourishment begins when you stop seeking belonging outside yourself and return to the quiet recognition within.

And from that place…

something changes.

Not through force.
Not through restriction.
But through awareness.

Because the truth is—

you were never missing.

You were simply looking in the wrong direction.

And the moment you turn inward, you remember:

That the Moment Before the Next Bite

You are already whole.
You are already here.
You are already found.