When I returned to my body, I threw my energy into cooking. The dear friends who’d helped me pick up my life cooked for me in their sunny San Francisco condo, and I imitated their meals until I began to learn. I looked up recipes on the inter net. I practiced. It helped that I was a thirty-second walk from the legend ary Berkeley Bowl, whose heaps of pro duce and plenty re mains the only thing I miss about the Bay Area. I fed myself like a woman who needed to love the world again. I made fresh lo mein tossed with sautéed broccolini, soy sauce, ginger, sriracha; corn tortillas warmed in a pan and loaded with warmed and spiced refried beans, chunks of creamy avocado, twists of lime; elaborate salads with golden beets and goat cheese and walnuts, tossed with goddess dressing and robust, garlicky croutons. I bought produce I didn’t know how to cook or eat. Googled it. Found new obsessions, spit others into the sink. Smelled the durian with longing—the scent incredible to me, overly sweet and meaty—but never could afford to buy one. I bought salad mixes with edible flowers from the farmers market and stood over the counter in my cottage’s kitchen, nibbling at the petals like I imagined a snail would. The meals were overwhelmingly vegetarian—my ex-boyfriend was a vegetarian, the son of Seventh-day Adventists, and I’d gotten used to it. I learned to like wine. At least, I learned to like two-dollar bottles from Trader Joe’s, which was all I could afford.