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Three Whole Years

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Three Whole Years

a thank you note

Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Mar 23, 2023
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Three Whole Years

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I didn’t mean to start a newsletter. I’d never wanted to start a newsletter. I was posting food pictures and answering requests for recipes from friends on social media. My instructions included crying in the car, yelling at the TV, wrapping yourself in bubble wrap for store trips, and setting up quarantine zones for groceries before disinfecting every object from the outside world, including yourself. Each post became mutable lists of substitutions that fit the scarcity of produce and financial resources but also snapshots into my internal life which was similar to almost everyone’s internal life because we were all watching Tiger King and constantly revising our sense of threat and danger.

Three years ago, I was between homes and living on an air mattress in a friend’s spare bedroom. I co-owned a bar and restaurant, but we had already closed our doors and given away every ounce of perishable food to our staff, along with whatever cash we had on hand.

I had no guarantee of income, no way of knowing whether the bar would make it, and no plan for what would happen next. While my roommate made pattern after pattern for home-sewn face masks, I was (predictably) in the kitchen. It was a strange time, I don’t have to tell you.

Having signed a lease before COVID was officially declared a pandemic, I moved into my own apartment just two weeks after successfully submitting my unemployment claim. My kitchen was tiny. When I’d signed the lease, I didn’t care because I frequently spent 11 hours in the restaurant kitchen and rarely had time to cook at home.

Tiny kitchen. The refrigerator is not pictured but is just to the left of the sink. I had a small folding bookshelf on the wall behind me which served as the pantry and I hung a fruit basket from the door frame. This is where I cooked chapters 14-64.

With nowhere to go, alone in my little kitchen, I never stopped cooking. Every long and anxious day was spent researching food that I could make using the limited supply of ingredients available on a very restricted budget or cravings for foods that I missed or reminded me of a less terrifying time.

I cooked and wrote every day, posting only on social media. Every picture was, and has remained, a plate of food that I ate. Nothing went to waste. I had/have nothing to waste.

I don’t consider myself a brand or chef or food stylist or photographer or recipe developer. I never have been. I am a writer who loves food, loves cooking, and loves feeding people. Alone in that tiny kitchen, far from home, I found myself reaching for people, trying to universalize the experience to fight back the deep isolation and panic that started off the day, every day, for months and months and months that became years.

Following the advice of my friend, Sam Irby (which is a name drop, but I’m also doing you a favor if you don’t know about her Substack, bitches gotta eat, or haven’t read her recent piece in The New Yorker), I joined Substack and started trying to develop this project, which ultimately became my lifeline.

In the beginning, my venmo tip bucket and paid subscriptions bridged the income gap and helped me afford groceries. I focused on local and seasonal produce because they cost less. I made almost everything from scratch (I’m still not a baker) because I had to make the most from what little I had.

I am fortunate. I am single and do not have children and my 11-year-old car is paid off and reliable. With the help of Substack, I was able to stretch the stimulus and enhanced unemployment, while saving as much as I possibly could.

I moved back home in August 2020. The restaurant wasn’t going to recover quickly enough to support all three owners and our small staff, even with loans. Like a lot of restaurant workers, I resolved not to return to the industry that wrought havoc on my body, perverted my sense of worth, and convinced me that all the abuses and sacrifices were somehow badges of honor.

When I say home, I literally mean my parent’s house. I took over the kitchen, much to their relief and, dare I say, joy. Together we waited for vaccines and negotiated the experience of a very adult daughter cohabitating with her parents in the nest that had been very empty for 15 years.

I aggressively saved money and picked up a few jobs, here or there. After a year, vaccines were released, life began to move forward, and the newsletter moved from an almost daily balm to a bi-weekly project.

By year two, people were coming over for dinner, we all seemed to be going ahead with our lives, and the newsletter moved to weekly.

As I move into this third year, I realize how far our experiences have diverged from those days spent watching the same reports and exhausting every streaming platform’s catalog. I’m still rebuilding a professional life and deeply appreciate and rely on all my paid subscribers who continue to support the grocery bill.

I have my own apartment now with a slightly larger kitchen. Thanks to you, dear subscribers, I have roasting trays and bundt pans. You’ve also helped purchase my blender and citrus zester. You keep me in lemons and beans.

You have gone from a list of friends, relatives, and acquaintances to a mailing list of more than 800 people, spanning 46 US states and 23 countries. More than half of you have opened my emails every week, which is way more than I was told to expect.

A few dozen of you have been with me this whole time (hi, Sharon, Karen, Janet, Piper, Jen, etc!). The vast majority of my paid subscribers have stuck with me through every move and major life event for the last three years, despite the fact that I still don't have a paywall. I so appreciate your support.

If there is anything that you would like to see (or read) more or less of, please let me know what you would like for dinner and I will do my best to feed you.

We know each other very well and not at all. 255 posts and three years later, I think about you all the time. Sometimes you are the only reason I remember to feed myself and take the time to make actual meals. Thank you, as always, for your support.

I keep going because you keep reading ❤️


A few early favorites:

Eat Well Enough
Lentil Soup Recipe
Render bacon or salt pork or don't. I did salt pork because it is cheaper and the only thing left at Wegmans other than super organic, applewood smoked, thick-cut fancy bacon made from pigs who maybe had more of their needs taken care of than like 15% of people in this country (a rough and generous estimate). You only need about 3oz. No pork: butter. Ve…
Read more
4 years ago · 2 likes · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
Passover for One Recipe
Wake up feeling frustrated, generally cantankerous and accidentally be a little snippy on the phone with your mother. Look at your calendar, wondering if you are just premenstrual, and realize that tonight is the first night of Passover. You knew it was coming, but the Zoom Seder is on Saturday so you just didn’t even think about it. Cry…
Read more
4 years ago · 4 likes · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
Recipe for a Bottle of Wine
Everything in your refrigerator is leftovers or ingredients and you don’t want any of it. You finally got rid of your shriveling lemons by turning them into lemonade, but you drank that with the rest of the vodka on Monday when you thought it was actually Tuesday and showed up to a zoom cocktail hour that didn’t exist yet…
Read more
4 years ago · 1 like · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
Stay At Home S’mores
Chapter 44 This was one of the longest weeks in the history of weeks. We went from sourdough starters and banana bread to defunding/abolishing the police in a matter of moments. The world has been burning for a long time. It’s possible that you have come to understand how hot and how long it has been burning this whole time. Maybe you already knew, were b…
Read more
3 years ago · 1 like · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
Bowl of Cereal
Chapter 64 Sometimes it feels like you have to do everything on your own. Maybe it is true, because you are single or work for yourself or live on a deserted island with your stick friend who is of no help at all, other than criticizing the structural integrity of the hut you have built for both of you (ungrateful stick…
Read more
3 years ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
Grilled Peaches with Basil Whipped Cream
Chapter 67 Sometimes you just wake up angry. It’s not just “these days”, necessarily. It’s not just the burning need for caffeine before anyone speaks to you and summons the pre-caffeinated demon that is always lurking inside you. It’s not just the campaign to return to normal because anything else is just so inconvenient. It’s not just the herding of und…
Read more
3 years ago · 3 likes · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
A Big Sad Plate Full of Carbs Meant to Comfort You
Chapter 69 Loving someone was so much easier in the before times when you could casually place your hand on a person you love and they would know that your touch meant “I love you. I am happier just being near you.” You haven’t stopped loving people. You are still happier when you are near them, but your hands make you a little sad now. Somehow they’ve be…
Read more
3 years ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
“Red” Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
(yes, I know it’s purple-ish. It’s as undecided as all of these other states. Contested Velvet Cake, Undeclared Velvet Cake, Non-Partisan Velvet Cake, I Can’t Stop Hitting Refresh Velvet Cake?) Chapter 89 Things you’ll need: Cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, buttermilk, eggs, vegetable oil, w…
Read more
3 years ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan
Eat Well Enough
How To Bake a Grief Cake
Things you’ll need: oil, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, baking powder, flour, salt, and a random cake recipe (or a box of cake mix and whatever it wants you to add). Whipping cream, cream cheese, strawberries, and a hug. Chapter 99 Your calendar still reminds you of their birthday. Facebook even sends you a notification, as if you had forgotten the d…
Read more
3 years ago · 10 likes · Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan

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Three Whole Years

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Three Whole Years

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Sharon
Mar 23Liked by Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan

What a three years it has been, Emily, and Eat Well Enough helped a lot of people through it. I love you -- and your food -- so much!

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Jenn Chen
Writes tanjennts
Mar 23Liked by Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan

Many congrats! What a huge accomplishment.

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