Where I grew up, every meal was cooked at home.

It wasn’t something anyone thought about. Food was made fresh, every day, and that was simply how a household ran. Eating out was for the weekend or for a special occasion. It was a treat, and it felt like one.

Then I moved to England, and that changed.

Here, cooking wasn’t the daily thing it had been at home, and there was nobody doing it for me. Life was busy and the easier options were everywhere. A takeaway on the way home. Something quick from the supermarket. I adapted, the way most of us do. It didn’t feel like a decision. It was just how people around me lived, and it became how I lived too.

I don’t think I noticed what I had given up until I had children.

What brought me back

Something shifts when you are feeding someone else. I wanted my children to eat fresh, healthy food, and I wanted to know what was in it. The simplest way to be sure of that was to make it myself.

So I started cooking again, properly, the way I had grown up seeing it done. At first it was for them. It was one more thing to fit into the day, and some evenings it felt like exactly that.

But over time it has become something I do for myself as well.

These days I put some music on in the kitchen and light a candle. I give myself that time. Nobody needs anything from me for half an hour except dinner, and my hands are too busy to pick up my phone. It has become how I wind down at the end of the day, and I look forward to it.

There is also something in knowing that the meal on the table was made with love, for the people I love. I think they can tell the difference. I know I can.

What I’m noticing

I don’t think I am the only one.

For a long time, cooking was treated as a chore to get out of. We were busy, and there was always a quicker way to get dinner on the table. For many people that was a real freedom, and I understand why.

But I see more and more people coming back to the kitchen, and they aren’t doing it because they have to. They are doing it because it gives them something. A break from the screen. A way of looking after themselves that doesn’t involve buying anything. The chance to pay attention to what they are feeding themselves and their families.

None of this means cooking every night. I don’t, and I wouldn’t tell anyone else to. Some weeks the easy option is the right one.

But the thing I grew up taking for granted has turned out to be one of the parts of my day I value most. It took me a long time, and a move to another country, to see it.