Basil Pesto… The Art and Science of Recovery.
In my early twenties, I learned how to make a good basil pesto. Today, I harvest my basil from my sunny herb garden in Santa Barbara, a far cry from my first apartment’s plastic pots. As hard as I try, in truth, I have never made the same pesto twice—each one is unique. Over time, I found making pesto is both an art and a science. I no longer use a recipe; I base each batch on the taste of my fresh ingredients. What I discovered is that while the list of ingredients stays the same, the proportions constantly change.
The results depend on how well I toast the pine nuts, the intensity of the basil, and the marrying of the cheese, olive oil, salt, and pepper. On occasion, I will add the tiniest hint of lemon zest, not always, but it remains at the ready. Garlic requires extra care, add too much you overpower, too little, your pesto is flat, missing dimension. While it may appear simple, pesto is a complex creation with each ingredient contributing to the whole.
Prior to Norah’s anorexia diagnosis, pesto was her favorite food. When asked to pick dinner, she would sparkle, Pesto pasta Mom! Norah not only loved to eat it, but she also relished her role as kitchen apprentice. With painstaking detail, she would wash the basil, pinch the stems, and graciously step into her position as official pine nut taster. I left it to Norah to decide if the nuts were perfect or needed to be, Just a bit toastier.
When I look back on the earliest days of Norah’s diagnosis, a few meals still make me wince. In these dark moments, the terror in her eyes, the pain as she would experience sitting with food, prevented me from preparing pesto. Many parents begin with their child’s absolute favorites in refeeding. I did not, I waited several months to tackle her most favorite meal. In the first six months, I felt the strain of building and developing new calorie dense meals to support Norah’s weight gain. Like so many before us, Jeff and I would spend hours in the kitchen working to create these meals. As a family we would lean into food as medicine, but even so, I still held back. The reason was simple, food preparation had lost its joy—no longer art it had become solely science.
As a couple, Jeff and I would learn, my greatest asset would be my strong parental distress skills. I could tolerate the meals of cheeseburger and fries, along with the predictable anger, rage and thrown food. I wouldn’t flinch, when she would slam her fist on the table with the screaming recitation of, this is garbage.
Nope, I was good.
What I worried would break me, was seeing the heart of our family crumbling, to accept how far we had fallen out of our previous life. There were several dishes I just didn’t think I could get through. I would need to move past my own distress and discomfort to claim our future. These special meals would become necessary as a model for normalized eating behaviors. I needed to make peace and know, for a time they would be brutal.
What I would also learn, is there will come a time when you believe you have nothing left. You will be called, and once again required, to find this extra strength. To once more. Dig. Even. Deeper.
This is a painful and raw time, you have been tireless, managing your entire family’s distress, while many of you are silently suffering with little or no support. I understand your pain. In your fatigue and exhaustion, you long for an easier path—a reprieve. You are not in denial; you know exactly how difficult your life has become. You are simply desperate for significant progress.
For some parents they become hyper focused on wanting their old life. They daydream and revisit their old social media images of life just prior to the ED diagnosis. As you replay these images, your memories will soften, and the edges will become smooth. You may begin to believe your life was better than you remember. You will tell yourself it was even ok or great.
In this place, I will caution you, there is no going back. The reality is your pre-ED life had been going sideways much longer than you realize. Do not let this pain overtake you, you must not stall out, accepting the dangerous status quo, or even a quasi-recovery. If in this moment, you need additional support, go-for it. You are a warrior, many of us would not have survived this struggle without our own therapy and medication—get support.
Unlike some of you, I had no illusions of our former life, I was not looking for the old pesto meals. What worried me, was how to find the strength to move forward. To know, how far we had fallen and how much we would need to climb. I wanted to look forward to the new pesto meals, and I needed the strength to get us there.
The question I needed to ask myself was, Could I dig just a bit deeper? Could I find the last bit of my power and tap into it? In this moment, I was exhausted, tired, and weak. I knew we were months and years from this recovery place. I was terrified. Did I have the strength?
It matters not, if you are a week into this journey or years, you will meet yourself in this darkness. In this place, do not be afraid of your fear. You are not alone, all of us have been there.
If you find yourself, tired, weak, searching for yourself, and falling into this dreamscape of your previous life—recognize this tug. AND. STOP.
Walk yourself into your bathroom and look in the mirror, and say
We need to focus on ONLY today. This recovery place I keep hearing about, this is the place where we are going. There is one path, and it is forward.
I then asked myself, what makes me feel rock-solid at my core? Each of us will answer this differently. Is it running on your favorite path? Reading in a specific corner of your favorite library? Or hiking to a favorite overlook?
When I need to dig the deepest, I turn to the source and the reservoir of my strength. Since my earliest childhood, I have loved sitting in churches. For the longest time, I thought churches were the sole home of the Divine.
I do not often talk about my faith in my ED writings, but it remains integral to my daily life. I am an extremely flawed practicing Catholic, one who is prone to cursing, among many other faults. Which is why, I lean into my faith tradition— I clearly need an abundance of grace. As a result, when times are tough, I find myself going to Daily Mass. It is one of the tools I use to manage my anxiety. In Santa Barbara, I can attend a 7 am Mass in a convent chapel. Having been educated by nuns— I love me some sisters, and for me there is nothing better than to start my day hearing beautiful women sing the songs of my childhood.
One day, after gaining a little grace in my body, I scored some coffee to fuel it, and drove to the store to purchase the ingredients for pesto. I was determined to reclaim our family’s favorite meal.
Later that evening, as the family assembled for dinner, I presented each of us with a plate of chicken pesto pasta, Norah’s favorite meal. We said grace, and for the first time in months, I had a delicious glass of wine. As I relished the first sip, I gazed into the eyes of the three most important people in my life. I knew in this moment, our life was horribly painful, and yet, even in the mess I remained grateful we were together. As I took in this beautiful meal, the candles flickered, my mind began to wander, and I began to count down. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6…
Because I knew, in this beautiful family moment, something would come. Some negotiation, maybe rage. I knew ED would have zero tolerance for this meal, this scene, and this version of our life.
And exactly on cue,
Mom, thank you for making such a nice meal. But I no longer like pesto, it is no longer to my taste. May I have something else?
In what world does an 11-year-old say,
It’s not to my taste?
Of all the ED nonsense I was expecting, the declaration of hating pesto, wasn’t one of them. Too much food, too many pasta shells, too much butter on the bread. All likely suspects. Hating pesto, not on my radar. Nope. If ED had a script, so did I. As I placed my Waterford Crystal wine glass delicately on the table. (Yep, no Target wine glass for this meal.) I looked into the loving eyes of my child and said calmly and clearly.
Norah, you not only like pesto, you love it. No, you will complete this meal.
And I took my first bite. Norah would sit at the table for about two minutes before she picked up her fork and took hers. I watched my beautiful child, as her hands shook, and the first pasta shell crossed her lips.
She grimaced, Mom, I just don’t like pesto.
While Norah’s words said she hated pesto, I watched her do something I had not seen in forever.
I watched my daughter lick her lips.
At every single previous meal or snack, Norah would use her napkin to wipe an invisible piece of food off her mouth. While sitting at my table, this meal became a game of poker, and I had just realized ED was bluffing, and I had a royal flush.
For the next forty minutes, Norah’s tongue was her only napkin—and without speaking, she knew my pine nuts were perfect, and without ED’s consent she would taste every morsel of cheese, oil, salt, and pepper. She would taste the bite from the garlic and the freshness of the basil.
Not once did she offer anything remotely positive about the meal, but for a split second, a camera flash, I witnessed what I thought had been lost forever.
I would see, sheer delight wash over her face, and then it was gone.
The delight, it was there for an instant, then quite simply vanished.
It was enough. I would sit stone-faced and sip my glass of wine, never once acknowledging what I had seen. I just watched my beauty, slowly and steadily complete her meal. As a family we happily chatted about silly things.
Not to say the meal was entirely smooth sailing. I would occasionally need to coach. Throughout the meal, Norah would continue to try and negotiate. With each suggestion, ED’s attempted engagement, I would lovingly refuse not only the request, but any chance to be pulled into the discussion. I changed the conversation, or simply ignored each of her requests. This meal was a rare one, it didn’t escalate.
The litany of endless responses I would hear in my head and occasionally speak out loud, would include.
No, you may not eat just the chicken. No, you will not have plain pasta. No, you may not eat half your bread. No, you may not have just bread without butter. No, you are not finished. No, you will not have any substitutions. No, you will finish the entire meal. Yes, you will have dessert.
In each refusal, my soul reclaimed our precious family meal, and I tore anorexia from our life. Norah could proclaim for however long it would take, that she hated pesto. But I knew, as I matched her bite for bite, I now had a new weapon. Norah would silently show me her tells, and I would weaponize them against ED. The more she could normalize her eating, the stronger we were against the ED. And to support her, I would bring back targeted food daily if necessary.
When I explained, you would need to dig deep, to blindly step into the unknown. It was with the promise you would emerge with a new life. And while you may have thought your old life was good or even great, you could not imagine your future.
While I enjoy eating pesto, I think my greatest enjoyment comes from the art of making it. I love nothing more than to delight in a wonderful meal, surrounded by family, and infused with love and laughter. As a parent, one of my great joys has been watching our children master things we always had done for them.
Today Norah can make pesto. Literally, she makes the most delicious pesto for our family, and as a result, I have now retired. I love to sit in our kitchen as she chats and roasts the pine nuts, something, I might add she does perfectly. Norah laughs as she tastes, and tinkers—adding a dash of pepper and grates her requested parmesan cheese—it is just nutty and salty enough, she tells us. I take such satisfaction sitting at dinner as we eat her pesto. I can tell you there will never be a Michelin five-star dinner which would taste better, it is simply not possible.
In May of 2021, our family will mark the fourth anniversary of Norah’s hospital admission. Throughout our journey, Norah has always had a voice in her recovery, but never a vote. Along with her team, we always listened. When her wishes did not move us toward recovery, we told her, and as her parents we made the decisive decisions necessary to keep her recovery on track. This was never pleasant, but it was necessary. On many occasions, it would be Norah’s voice which we used to create our goals and objectives. You want to go on the weekend camping trip in three months. Here is what you need to do.
My single greatest joy, the place in which my soul rejoices, is watching my daughter develop her own recipe for recovery. The tools, skills, and lessons she has learned, the hours of therapy, the car rides back and forth to San Diego for check-ups, the hard days, the disastrous and scary ones, the untold suffering she has endured, the great days and then the hard ones right after. They bring us to this moment. The place in which she has asked us to step further back as she steps more completely into her own recovery.
Now to be clear, she still isn’t flying completely solo. At 15, Norah demonstrates strong recovery skills, and many parents would view it as a marker she is close to remission. As Norah’s parents, we see what others observe, and we celebrate her extraordinary success. We also know that based on the severity of her illness, Norah will require long term oversight.
Even with monitoring, I can share, we are daily filled with joy. Like all of you, this is the moment I have prayed for, cried on the floor of my shower for, and only dreamed of...
What pushed me forward every day. Remains impenetrable and will never be extracted from my bones. Even in the darkest moments, not for one second did Norah ever belong to anorexia, she has and will always be mine.
In my heart, I believe this truth is available to all of our children. How do I know this? Because like you, I’ve lived it.
- Kathryn / PilgrimageGal
(Photo Credit: Ulrike Leone from Pixabay)