On Food & Creativity
A conversation with Heidi Fiedler!
In many ways, food has served as my preferred outlet for creativity. Starting as a more passive hobby, my obsession took off during the pandemic. With two kids under five and no childcare, meals became the one space in which I could access creativity, both a distraction and a necessity of endless time at home. As I’ve written about before, this became a habit that stuck. While I’m grateful to have the option of take-out back on the table (along with so many other aspects of normal life), I still find creativity and calm in cooking.
On the other hand, as anyone who has ever been interrupted by the thought, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? can attest, the relentlessness of feeding ourselves and our families can be a drain on creativity. Even if you are a person who enjoys cooking (and especially if you are not), meal planning, prep, and all the pieces of managing daily meals pulls bandwidth from other ways we may want to spend our time.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Heidi Fiedler, author of Quickening: The Art of Being a Creative Mother and the newsletter, Nebula Notebook. In this area of her work (she is also a longtime children’s book writer and editor), Heidi offers empathetic ideas, practical advice, and helpful resources for moms who are looking to find some room for creativity in their lives.
I’m so excited to share insights from my conversation with Heidi about food, creativity, and balance. Whether you already have a project you’re trying to make time for or are just feeling the tug toward something that lights a spark, I hope you find some inspiration and permission here to make space for creativity.
Dinner with Heidi Fiedler!
“No one is waiting for you to turn your ideas into something, but if you are a mother, someone is definitely waiting for you to do the laundry and figure out dinner.”
- Quickening: The Art of Being a Creative Mother
Choose to create (or not create) intentionally
Especially as a parent, finding time and energy for creativity tends to take a backseat to the constant pile of more urgent tasks. In search of balance, Heidi suggests making choices with intention.
“Decide what you want to be good at, or what you care about. That might shift as time goes on or as your family grows or your kids get older, but I don’t think you can do everything. You definitely cannot do everything to the standards to which we are expected, and sometimes you have to just let something go.
Sometimes that means not writing, or not working on your creative project. Sometimes that means having cereal for dinner or signing up for a meal service or whatever works for you. Giving yourself permission to choose, to choose intentionally, and to live with that choice for a while is helpful.
If you find you’re spending your time in ways that don’t reflect what you want to be working on, you’re allowed to make changes. Yes, you do have to have dinner on the table and you do have to do laundry, but no one is going to come to your house and police how you do it either. You get to choose what that looks like for you.”
Giving yourself a mini “sabbatical” can open up time in unexpected ways.
“When I started trying to combine being a mom and writing and whatever else I was working on, it seemed like I was supposed to substitute childcare for work in this very linear 1:1 kind of way. But, I found that sometimes I would have childcare and just spend that time resting, and then it meant that I could do something else later.
It took me a while to realize that you can move things around. You can take a week off of dinner and say, okay, now I’m using that time in the mornings to write. It might not be that you actually write during dinner. You might be giving snack plates, but still you made that trade in your mind and somehow that translates to more time and energy.”
Dinner comes with a lot of pressure, but there are other ways to have family time and find creativity in food.
It’s okay to take the pressure off of dinner.
“Try to lower the stakes. Let it not be a moral indictment on you as a parent or your family. We’ve heard so much about why we should eat together and all this pressure to do it. It can feel really heavy if you can’t do that for whatever reason. You can be a happy, healthy family even if that never happens. We sometimes eat breakfast together, sometimes we eat snacks together. We are not lacking for together time in our family, so it’s okay to let that go.
Our family is neurodivergent - my husband is autistic and my son is autistic. We would like to have dinner together, but it’s challenging and is not my favorite time of day by any means. Usually my son has noodles, and I’m happy if he has those with lentils or vegetables in them, or the protein noodles. For my husband and myself, as we’re getting older, our schedules and appetites are changing. We don’t always want to sit there for a full dinner. My approach to dinner tends to be very simple. I’m making two separate things, but those might be noodles, and then salmon and broccoli. That’s it. Then I call it good and do it again the next day.”
If food is something you enjoy as a creative outlet, find the time and space that works for you.
“Everyone feels that pressure, but it’s tricky because part of me does want to be someone who spends time leisurely chopping things and making dinner and enjoying the process. It’s just that there are 10,000 things that happen before that moment of the day and someone still needs me. There’s still so much going on that even if you have the best of intentions, it’s hard.
I put my personal preferences and creativity into my lunch. It’s often leftovers, like fish and broccoli, and then I add tzatziki and a nice rice or whatever, but that is for me. I get to choose that and sit and enjoy it in a way that I can’t really do at dinner. So, I’m more likely then to try a new random ingredient or change it up a little bit. I think part of the creativity is doing it at a time that isn’t dinner and letting that be okay.”
Thank you to Heidi for sharing her creative wisdom and approach to dinner! If you’re interested in more ideas for making space for creativity, I highly recommend her Substack, Nebula Notebook.
Three Great Recipes:
Frozen Fish Chowder, from What Goes With What (Julia Turshen): This was an unexpected success, made as part of my ongoing quest to find fish recipes that the whole family enjoys. It was not only a deliciously springy soup, but also surprisingly easy. Julia cleverly starts with frozen fish and corn (no need to plan defrosting), keeping prep to a minimum.
Picnic Chicken, from Dinner: A Love Story (Jenny Rosenstrach): Another recipe that feels fitting for warmer weather, this Picnic Chicken had been on my list for a while. The 24-hour marinade takes some forethought, but then makes for an easy meal to stick in the oven.
A Dinner “Sabbatical”: Ever since discovering Whole Foods’ new Family Meal offering, I’ve been a repeat customer at their prepared foods counter. I particularly appreciate that it comes in a single oven-ready pan, making it feel like a true night off.