Cooking For Men

I was baking a homemade peach pie the other day, rolling out pie crust in 90-degree heat like a moron and getting flour all over my yoga pants. I love making food, have since I was tall enough to use an oven, but I cannot pinpoint what possessed me to bake a pie in the first place. I do this alot, I see now. I get an idea in my head that some dish needs to be cooked today, not based on any tactile craving I am having for it, but more out of a feeling that I need to make it. When I was cooking for my ex, this made a little more sense, because I was in charge of food and I had to come up with our meals every day. I didn't search for food based on what was on sale or what was seasonal, which is really how it should be done. I based my selections on what excited me or what I imagined would make either of us feel happy. I cooked Gino rabbit and polenta when he talked about his grandmother because she used to make that for him. I cooked Thai chicken-coconut soup for myself and for him when either of us felt sick. I made sauteed kale with every meal for two straight weeks when I read that it was the most nutritious vegetable because I was determined to make sure both of us were healthy.
When we first moved in together, Gino told me he was really happy to have found a girl who could cook. He does not cook, beyond boiling spaghetti. He was raised by a family of great cooks, but he never learned to cook because he just didn't enjoy it. I was raised by great cooks as well, but I went the other way with it because working with food always felt natural to me. It also helped that Gino has the metabolism of a hummingbird and could eat anything, in any portion size, and not gain weight. I cooked things for him he had never eaten and reintroduced him to food he thought he hated simply by changing a few elements of it. He had never eaten anything with roasted garlic in it, or lemon zest, or homemade ricotta cheese. I painstakingly recreated his mother's sauce recipe because he loved it so much, but I could never make it exactly right. When I made him the Caesar salad recipe my father had perfected and passed on to me, that was the end of it. He wanted to eat it twice a week. For his 30th birthday, I made a four-layer lemon cake with mascarpone filling, plus Rice Krispie treats because I wanted him to feel special. There were several things one has to do repetitively in a marriage that feel like chores- the laundry you have to do for two people and the dishes that need to be washed, and the sex that can feel like an obligation when you just don't feel that sexy, but cooking never really felt like a chore to me. I am sure that I must have complained about having to be home to make dinner more than a few times, but that was usually only if it meant I was missing out on some social engagement I would rather be at, or if I went through all the trouble of creating something I thought was spectacular and Gino was not that wowed by it. I put all of my love into cooking for him, and I really do wish I still had that.
Now that I do not have a husband to cook for, I have found myself missing this, missing the challenge of coming up with something that will impress him. I cook for my best friend and his boyfriend a little and they enjoy it, but I feel strange at the same time, as if I am forcing food on them that they didn't ask for like the Italian-Irish mother I know I truly am. The only way I can get my culinary ya-yas out is by feeding my straight dude friends. I go to my friend Mike's house loaded up with pineapple upside-down cake, goat cheese tartlets, peach pie, and anything else I arbitrarily decide needs to be prepared from week to week. I decided that this week is the week for fried chicken just because I found my meat cleaver in storage and missed breaking down a whole fryer with it, so I am bringing fried chicken when I see them next. I have an inborn need, passed down from my father, to feed people. Food is what we use to show that we care in my family, and it was what I used to show Gino that I was always thinking of him.
When I was packing my things the day that I left, Gino asked me if he could call me in the future for cooking tips. This is the only part of me, I thought,  that he will miss. I was crying and sweating and trying not to kiss him, not to cling to him because I knew he didn't want me to. Still, I said he could call me for anything because I have not stopped wanting to please him. I can feel my heart hardening toward him, but I have not, despite all of my efforts, stopped feeling the need to take care of him. I am worried that all of the energy I channeled into caring for him will only get redirected toward caring for some other man, which is why I know I cannot date anyone until I learn to care for myself. I miss cooking for two, but I know the best thing I can do for for myself right now is cook for one.