for love or money

Many years and several versions of myself ago, I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Washington Heights that I paid $700 a month for. It was the kind of tiny where your bed is also your couch, and your "bedroom" and the kitchen counter are right next to each other. It was suffocating at times, but it was mine, and it was the place where i finally started a life of cooking for myself.

I cooked a lot, too, for my boyfriend at the time. We had gotten together during the week of Valentine's Day, a thing we tried to ignore at the time but that made me secretly feel like our romance was extra romantic, even though we were two people who acted like we were too cool for romance. 

And because I was too cool for romance, I kept it out of my words and poured it instead into my actions: On weekends, when my boyfriend got off work, he'd take the train uptown and I'd be waiting for him at the door with a giant sandwich. We got into a routine in those days, with those sandwiches: I called them the For Love or Money, and I no longer remember why. It was a simple sandwich: thick slices of a rosemary boule with mayo, avocado, tomatoes and grilled fake chicken*. It wasn't really even cooking, but it was a way to say I love you long before I ever let myself say the words, and it was a way that I said I love you to myself long after that relationship was over.

It was after that breakup that I started spending Valentine's Days alone, regardless of whether I was seeing someone, and treating the day like an opportunity to remind myself that it is okay for me to love me the best. I started buying myself flowers, and cooking whatever meals felt most luxurious to me on that day. Sometimes that meant making a stew, sometimes it meant buying sushi. 

This year, I celebrated a few days early with a Saturday spent catching up on reading and sleep and clearing my house of clutter. I kept the food part simple: A day full of snacks, from pate on focaccia toasts to chips with french onion dip to shrimp cocktail. (Why is shrimp cocktail always such a comfort?!) I worked out. I took a long, hot shower. I made some wishes for myself and for the people around me.

I have a friend who is fascinated by the fact that I have no interest in marriage: that I can be a romantic in the ways that I am but not want that kind of commitment. I have tried to explain that it's not the commitment that's the issue, it's the paperwork. It's the idea of waking up one morning and not knowing if someone is with you because they are choosing to wake up with you or because they are choosing to honor the paperwork. In a way, I guess, I see marriage as antithetical to romance: I want to know that you’re choosing me, always me, and not simply a concept.

It can be hard to feel that way in one’s relationship with oneself: After all, having a body and a brain is a marriage you didn’t ask to be in and one you can’t reverse-paperwork your way out of. But there are still ways that you can wake up every morning and choose yourself. You can wake up at 6am on a Sunday to the sounds of Eric Dolphy, and you can decide to make yourself an omelette while you drink your coffee. You can eat jam with your toast.

It is no accident that the ways I choose to show up for myself so often include food, and it is certainly no accident that if I love you, I will tell you by making you food long before I ever tell you with my face. It is also no accident that Valentine’s Day is a holiday the world has centered around food: It’s about dinner reservations, and fat juicy steaks, and seafood towers, and luxurious desserts. It’s a day that you can use food to say I love you. It’s a day that can remind you that you can wake up every morning after that and choose to continue doing so.

Here is the playlist I share every year, which I made several years ago and am too lazy to update. 

*Editor’s note: For my vegetarian and veg-adjacent friends, these are the best fake chicken cutlets money can buy.