Hamilton artist creates depression-friendly recipe book

Cooking three meals a day can be overwhelming if you struggle with mental health. With that in mind, a Hamilton artist offers piece of cake solutions for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Depression Cooking - Easy recipes for when you are depressed as f---" by interdisciplinary artist Sonali Menezes is both a cookbook and zine" with a pinch of rebellion and honest step-by-steps on how to keep yourself fed.

Launched in February, the zine is defined as a love letter to the artist's depressed kin. Its pages are an explicit statement against diet culture while gathering low energy recipes, convenient cooking tips and some friendly advice:

Eating alone? Try video calling a friend while you're eating and have your meals together virtually."

My biggest and best secret to making frozen pizza better? Add more toppings before you put it in the oven."

The 29-year-old and youngest of triplets, Menezes came up with the zine at the beginning of the pandemic after moving back in with her parents to make isolation less lonely. She went from living on James Street North with roommates, where picking up a bagel or a falafel for dinner was the easiest choice for a quick and effortless bite, to having three meals a day at home.

I was struggling with cooking for one and eating as well. I realized that a lot of people around me were also having the same experiences," she said.

Menezes said writing the zine taught her to be gentler with herself and not put the same amount of pressure to always make food from scratch. As someone who has depression with no energy to cook all my meals from scratch, I have always eaten frozen pizzas and frozen wings. The zine has helped me to lean into relying on those food sources guilt free."

The Spoon Theory" by Lupus patient advocate Christine Miserandino, which illustrates what it feels like to live with a chronic illness was adapted to Depression Cooking." The number of spoons represent the levels of difficulty for each recipe. Less Spoons" are for meals that don't require a lot of work and More Spoons" will probably get more dishes dirty.

Some of ingredients the artist refers to as the holy trinity of depression cooking are mac and cheese, toast, and instant ramen which all play a big role in the zine.

I think ramen is the most amazing food. It's really all about the toppings you add to it, and you can make a completely different meal or really elaborate. If you don't have a lot of energy, you can keep it simple and just eat it plain."

Menezes was surprised by the community's feedback. After Hamilton Artists Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit artist-run centre opened an online form for copies of the zine, more than 150 people applied in less than 24 hours and the form had to be shut down due to the lack of copies.

Someone said it helped them do groceries guilt free for the first time in many, many years. And that they've started meal planning, using the recipes and that receiving those ideas were really helpful," said Menezes.

She planned to distribute the recipe book for free but being unemployed at the time made the goal hard to accomplish. In 2021, Menezes received a pitch invitation from Anna Bowen, a poet and writer based in Guelph to contribute to Complicating Care,' an article series created by artists and writers that tackle contradictory experiences and notions of care.

The series is part of ArtsEverywhere, a platform for artistic experimentation funded by the Musagets, an international philanthropic foundation from Guelph. Its release also counted with the collaboration and funding of Hamilton Artists Inc and an in-kind printing by Publication Studio Guelph.

Depression Cooking' was created in the spirit of sharing resources. I invite people to make copies of it, as many as they want to share with friends and family. It's a lesson I've learned in the pandemic around making art. It can also be for community and exist outside of our capitalist notions of what it is to make art," she said.

Beatriz Baleeiro is a reporter at The Spectator. bbaleeiro@torstar.ca