Our first week will be an exploration of food as the thread that binds a family together: even during the tougher times. Family recipes, often contained within the old pages of archaic notebooks: are some of the most precious heirlooms to exist. We will re-open them all over again. The first week, we will think and write about food as the love language of a family.

Reading packets: An exclusive list of poems by Li-Young Lee, Jane Wong, Billy Collins, and excerpts from stories by Amy Tan, Emily Dickinson’s letters, amongst others.

The second and third weeks, we will dive deep into the treasure trove of our first memories of food as children. The way we experienced food as children has a direct impact on the way we experience it as adults. We will spend our time re-discovering it as children: the first mango groves we ever saw, our favourite childhood dessert, the snacks/meals we looked forward to the most, the first dish we cooked for someone beloved, cooking with someone beloved, the sound of laughter emanating from kitchens, and so much more.

Readings: Poems by Robert Hass, excerpts from, from Nina Mingya Powles’ In the Kitchen, poems by Gary Soto and Wendy Cope.

Even though less often spoken of, food can also be connected to feelings of grief and loneliness. Has there ever been a time in your life when you’ve cooked a certain meal for yourself because it reminded you of a time or person that you love deeply— but can no longer have? Can food be both a reminder of grief— as well as the very force that helps you power over it?

In the fourth week, we will explore the relationship between food and loneliness, food and healing.

Readings: Excerpts from Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, poems by Gabriel Calvocoressi, Noor Hindi, Khaled Mattawa, Sylvia Plath. Scenes from Wong-Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love.

There’s something about that food that transports us to a place that is immaterial, and spiritual. It is meditative in the sense that it re-grounds us back in our bodies, and re-awakens all our senses. If cooking is an act of re-visiting the past: it’s also as much one of returning to the present. We will write our own poems of cooking as a way of caring for ourselves - and of finding healing.

Readings: Poems by Ellen Bass, Seamus Heaney, Leila Chatti, Mary Oliver, Jane Hirshfield, scenes from the film: The Lunchbox.

Joy Harjo writes in her poem, “The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.” What forms of resilience can we learn from the act of cooking, especially in troubled times? What sustenance: both personal and political, can it teach us? We will focus on the kitchen here as a transformative, revolutionary place.

Readings: Poems by Joy Harjo, Audre Lorde, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, excerpts from the writing of James Baldwin.