When I moved to Los Angeles with my girlfriend in early 2023, I didn’t know anyone in the city and worked remotely. How do you make friends, I wondered, when you don’t need to be anywhere? By this time last year it was clear that my world had gotten smaller. After we came back from a wonderful Thanksgiving in San Diego with my partner’s family, I realized I hadn’t missed celebrating it with anyone in L.A. — and no one in L.A. had missed me.
Loneliness was new to me. I became one of the many Americans who increasingly struggle with isolation, which is bad for our physical and mental health. But in seeking a way to make L.A. more like home, I discovered an unexpected escape from loneliness that involved forming community, exploring new neighborhoods and moving past outdated gender norms: I learned to cook.
The first place where I felt connected to the city was a market in Pico-Robertson. Products from my childhood anchored me in this new, unfamiliar place: Israeli soup powder. Tnuva cheese. Bags of Bamba (peanut-butter-puffs). I had little sense of what I was supposed to do with various ingredients. But because I was only working part-time, what I did have was time.
When depression and an eating disorder locked me in a downward spiral, it took months of the Barefoot Contessa to improve my relationship with food.
Which is why one Tuesday afternoon, I found myself finely chopping a mountain of herbs without a food processor, preparing a stew for an anniversary dinner. The next week, I pummeled a piece of challah dough, pausing and rewinding a video that demonstrated how to braid six strands of the bread into something presentable.
My camera roll holds an archive of these baby steps (and missteps) into the world of cooking. The challah was a golden-brown success — but was followed by pitas that didn’t puff. My hummus, sprinkled with paprika and pine nuts, looked and tasted great, but even my toddler nieces could have done a better job than I managed decorating the blueberry vanilla cake I baked.
Having the space and time to experiment with food allowed me to leave behind the guy who once tried to make macaroni and cheese by stirring together pasta and a block of orange-dyed cheddar. And cooking, in turn, helped me explore Los Angeles and, bit by bit, find connection.
Moving to a new city means learning which neighborhoods are best for different types of cuisine. In L.A., that was Westwood for Persian food, Koreatown for barbecue and fried chicken, Sawtelle for ramen, Fairfax and Olympic for Ethiopian food and pretty much anywhere for tacos. Cooking taught me that this diversity exists for ingredients as well as restaurants.
Growing up as an immigrant kid in Koreatown in the ‘80s, during the crack epidemic and gang conflict, was rough. But teaching poetry to teenagers taught me the beauty of building community.
Elat Market in Pico-Robertson is where I buy the dried Persian limes and herbs I need to make ghormeh sabzi. When I started preparing sushi, I bought nori, rice vinegar and tuna at Marukai in Sawtelle. Thai Town’s Bangluck and Silom are my stops for rice noodles and spicy peppers for pad kee mao. Wandering in search of niche ingredients that Trader Joe’s or Bristol Farms don’t typically stock is a great way to get to know the city.
It’s also a great way to get to know people. Last year, my girlfriend and I organized a last-minute Passover seder after realizing that some of her co-workers didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. We’ve hosted other acquaintances-turned-friends for pizza nights, and invited over people we met at college alumni events and ended up cooking stir-fry together.
Extending cooking into hosting taught us to embrace traditional holidays and stitch together less conventional reasons to invite people over. Our upcoming Chrismukkah party will also celebrate Shab-e Yalda, the Persian winter solstice, and many of the people coming are those we’ve become close with over past dinners.
Everyone can benefit from cooking. Nearly three in every four American adults are overweight or obese, and some studies have found that cooking at home is associated with better health whether or not one is trying to shed weight. I spent three months in Italy before my move to L.A., and upon returning home my doctor cautioned that I needed a change. Cooking more — including pizza and burgers — has helped me lose 30 pounds and counting.
Cooking can also reduce anxiety. It offers an outlet for frustration: Go right ahead and really work that dough. It can make you take yourself less seriously when you inevitably spill stuff (for me, that’s pretty often) or when you pretend you’re a chef in “The Bear.†Most importantly, it can help you find and deepen new friendships.
Men may have the most to gain from learning to cook. Data from the American Time Use Survey, in which Americans share how long they spend on daily activities, suggests that while men are cooking more than in previous years, it’s still far less than women do.
This Thanksgiving, my girlfriend’s family is coming up to L.A. and we’ll all have dinner at a family friend’s place. I’ll likely bring a challah, and I’ll also make some homemade bagels and lemon ricotta pancakes for when everyone comes to our place for brunch the next day. My forays into cooking have me excited that one day, my partner and I can host a proper Thanksgiving ourselves.
For all of us, loneliness can lead to greater risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety and premature death. Cooking won’t fix this on its own. But if you do feel lonely this holiday, embracing cooking may be a path to forge stronger connections for the next. In a society where many people are hungry for connection, a home-cooked meal is a great place to start.
Nadav Ziv is a writer based in Los Angeles.
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