12. 17. 2025
Yesterday, I made the mistake of watching the news. I was told an old man and his wife were murdered in cold blood, by their own flesh and blood, and while the nation bowed in sorrow with shaken heads, our president mocked the slain.1 He doubled the pain calling them “deranged” with the murderer still at large. If I had watched this scene in House of Cards, I would have dismissed the writing as too fanciful.
But reality itself no longer feels real. Headlines written in the past twelve months read like bad works of fiction. Federal agents seized a thousand bottles of baby oil from Diddy’s home. Our health secretary confessed a worm ate part of his brain. Pretty boy Luigi shot a CEO dead in Midtown, New York, and the public responded by falling in love with him?
It feels like we’re on a bumbling bus without brakes. And we’re clenching our calves and bracing our core and bending our knees to stay upright. But the more we shift our feet to find our footing, the more we aggravate the driver, and he swerves in retaliation.
In the midst of this madness, I found solace in something simple. Something that takes me away from the big, bad world out there and ushers me into a happy place. Something that shoos me off my screens. It won’t give us world peace, but it’s an infinite well; I could keep drawing from it for the rest of my life, and in it, I’ll always find new treasure.
Cue balloons and Beethoven’s fifth symphony revealing something much more mundane: I expanded my spice repertoire. Cooking has long been my happy place. I’m never as alive as when I’m hosting friends, serving them wine, rushing to check whether the braised beef in the oven has browned like I dreamed.
When my mind is stuffy and full of too many half-baked thoughts, I run to the stove. I know it will heed me. But despite this long love affair, I have only recently seen spices for what they are: fresh rolls of film; a friend for a beautiful adventure.
One of my favorite pastimes as a kid was strolling the aisles of HMV. I’d spend hours racking my fingers through reams of Playstation CD cases looking for the latest edition of EA Sports FIFA. Something about physically holding the cases gave me this surge of joy. I knew with this thing in my hand, I was about to have hundreds of hours of fun.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I did the adult version of this a few weeks ago. When I waltzed into Oaktown Spice Shop on Fillmore Street, I asked the attendant what was new and weird. I imagined she would offer me something fermented or funky. I explained I was throwing an event for 100 people and needed a rare spice from each continent. She paused and handed me a jar of chicken salt.
I was a little bemused. I wanted something pungent and striking, I didn’t come all this way for salt. But when I opened the jar up, I shut all my hesitations up. Deep breath in, and I smelled this concentrated punch of rotisserie-chicken-skin. Like I had downed a whole shot of chicken umami goodness basted low and slow until the flavor could deepen no more. I held it in my hand, like the Playstation CD, smiling, knowing we were about to have a blast.
I could put this stuff on roasted chicken sure, but I had to rub it on tomatoes; tripling down on the umami. I could draw out the moisture of purple cabbage and roast it dark and beautiful. I could add this to any pan sauce or curry or midweek stew. Crispy potatoes would love this. Miso soup would nod along. If I ganged this up with ginger-garlic paste, I could turn a broccoli hater into a believer. Listen, if you were on a second date looking to impress, and you handed your person a toasted baguette smeared liberally with French butter and several dustings of this stuff, and she failed to text you back, it was doomed from the beginning, fam.
See this is what spices can do for us. They open up the aperture of possibility by a factor of a thousand. But we can only find out what’s possible if we try things, right?
Mama raised you on mac and cheese seasoned with garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne, and a hint of nutmeg. Everyone in the family swears by it. At thirty years old, you have never questioned it. If you were drunk and a police officer asked you to recite her recipe, you would ace this sobriety test.
On a rainy day in mid July, you’re craving the only meal that warms you up. But you’re feeling adventurous today. You want to zhoosh it up. Is it crazy to add a dash of curry powder to the roux? Are you smoking something? Curry powder goes in sauces and stews. Yes, yes, this is true, but your kitchen is your wonderland. Your saucepan is one of the last remaining bastions for creativity.
Most of us adults no longer paint or draw, and we suffer for it. We don’t sing or dance, unless abetted with tequila. We don’t play the drums, craft much, or let ourselves get bored because we hold adult pacifiers in our pockets. But we all have to eat everyday, and experimenting in the kitchen is one way we can invite creativity back into our lives. Say you’re making a simple red pasta sauce. You know where you’ll land if you stick to the classics. Thyme, basil, and oregano are tried and tested for a reason. But what if you snuck in some cumin? Or sprinkled in some smoked paprika?
Maybe subtle flavors feel flat on your palate. If you know the heavenly feeling of waking up because your mother’s cooking has enveloped the whole house, maybe the delicate whisper of dried parsley won’t cut it. Maybe your palate yearns for louder decibels. Maybe you need some fermented funk. Maybe you need mushroom powder. Maybe today you brew a bold bag of breakfast tea, and infuse it into your beef stew.
I want us to invite spices into our arsenals of resistance. I’m sure Big Al’s 2006 recipe for baby back ribs is a stunner. It survived the 2008 financial crisis. Brexit, crypto, the metaverse, and it’s still the number one recipe for ribs on Reddit. But if you believe her omission of allspice is criminal, then rebel! Resist! Make it yours! Combine fennel seed and fenugreek for the fun of it. Cleave the line between sweet and savory. Many cultures stick cinnamon in beef stews, and we wonder why they are delicious. Recipes have always been light suggestions; your saucepan is your canvas.
When the world is spinning out of whack, and the news reads like a long-running horror movie, we need our creative outlets even more. Yes, we need places to escape to, but we also need to create moments of joy, impenetrable storehouses where the madness can’t breeze in, and routines that reinforce our humanity and what we hold dear and true.
Allow me one to make a huge extrapolation to make a symbolic point. Seventy-nine years ago, during the German occupation of France in WW2, Henri Patisse, a painter, lay bedridden because of a surgery to cure his abdominal cancer. In this terrible state, with his beloved nation under brutal, oppressive rule, and his own body failing him, he managed to create JAZZ, a collage masterpiece. His prints are vivid, energetic, and fresh: the stark opposite of his physical health, and the spirit of the world facing fascism. It was immediately recognized as a groundbreaking work of color and improvisation.
I cannot promise cooking with spices will right the world of its ills, but cooking can fight our personal battles. When we cook, we naturally host and come together. Our gaze turns to our people. Our friends feed us foreign flatbreads. Your roommate shows you her grandmother’s trick for toning down the acidity of tomatoes. You show them dishes outside the Western gaze, food impossible to describe with English culinary words. When we cook, we invite tasteful friction into our lives. We listen to our friends speak of their heartbreaks, their dreams, their annoying boss, their crushes, their aging parents, their wacky business ideas, their Labor Day plans. Cooking makes us more human. It tilts us towards other people. It rejects the fanaticism of AI and the optimization culture we live in.
2026 feels surreal. Lattes cost $7 and when you pay, the payment terminal demands twenty-five-percent gratuity as ransom tip. People you know personally likely have AI companions. If we are indeed cooked, we should, er, spend more time cooking.
This is the second act of Sweet Chamomile in the Hour of War. Most of this essay was written in 2025. Please share with someone if you like this!
Referring to the tragic case of Rob and Michele Reiner