I went to culinary school in 2005. Having consumed A LOT of Food Network before that.
I found the Food Network in graduate school, the first time I had both a TV and access to cable at the same time. My mother was dying, my heart was breaking, my world felt like it was ending, and all I could do was watch the Food Network.
I watched anything and everything. I watched Mario Batali in his orange clogs calling broccoli rabe little brooms for the colon. I watched Ina Garten make delicious meals for her sweet husband Jeffrey in the Hamptons. I watched Alton Brown geek out on science when he had hair. I watched Bobby Flay grill in Manhattan like he was living in Miami.
I watched Rachel Ray try to carry even more than I do while skipping from one end of her cute kitchen to another whipping up easy meals in under 30 minutes. I watched with intense concentration as Lidia Bastianich prepared homemade pasta for her brood. I watched Emeril Lagasse with his special spice and sound effects.
I watched the Food Network to feel closer to my mom and distract myself from the fact she was dying. Watching the Food Network was one of my first forms of culinary therapy.
While watching the Food Network during this stretch of time when my mom was dying, I also saw Sandra Lee with her semi-homemade everything.
I HATED Sandra Lee.
Like, more than you should dislike a stranger you don't know. I don't think I knew anything about her. I hated her for taking shortcuts and flaunting it.
I loved food and especially from scratch food. Low and slow, simmering all day long, filling the house with delicious aromas and evidence of love. Filling the counters and sink with dishes and mess.
I had clearly not yet become a mom or a working mom. Maybe I hated knowing it might be in my future. This semi-homemade life. Maybe I hated Sandra Lee to keep from becoming her.
Or maybe I recognized her as growing up in poverty and was trying to distance myself. Reading now that her approach to cooking was informed by being responsible for feeding her four younger siblings on food stamps and welfare, I feel even worse for disliking her so intensely.
My hatred lasted right into my marriage and motherhood. There was nothing semi-homemade in my house for YEARS.
From scratch. My freezer was lined with homemade stocks of three varieties and multiple pastry doughs. I made puff pastry from scratch. I made crackers from scratch. I made salad dressing from scratch. I made sauces from scratch. I made brownies and cakes from scratch.
I made things from scratch or I didn't make them at all.
And then my life fell apart, and I didn't make anything for a long time. 
And now as I once again try to employ culinary therapy to heal my mind and body after trauma, I can't make things from scratch.
I can't make things from scratch because so much of my culinary equipment is in storage that each time I think about making things from scratch I start to get sad. And stop wanting to make anything.
Loss takes away my hunger. Also my motivation to cook.
Each time I think about making things from scratch I think about all the things I can't access. My ten boxes of cookbooks, the special dish I need from my mom to make tamale pie, my full set of pots and pans, I feel grief.
And grief squelches hunger.
Especially on the weeks when I'm alone--which is every other week--this little circular thought process has left me largely incapable of cooking for myself. Plus there is the grief and loss of divorce and constant change, also making hunger less of a driving force.
And then there is the expense. It costs a lot in terms of both money and time to prepare meals from scratch as a single person. Most grocery stores do not cater to single people. They sell food in quantities that make sense for families, leading to waste if you're shopping for just one.
I hate waste. Because, like Sandra Lee, I grew up on food stamps and welfare.
Trader Joe's does better than most places I know in terms of having options that make sense for us singletons on a budget.
Enough of Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee must have filtered in even as I was hating her. Because I find my approach to cooking for one, at least so far, is Semi-Homemade with Trader Joe's.
Tonight's dinner is a prime example.
I've fallen in love with Trader Joe's pre-packaged salad mixes. Knowing full well I could make them on my own. But it is so delightfully easy to open a few bags, mix them together with tongs in a bowl, and have a salad that tastes good and is good for me. 
They have five or six different varieties of pre-packaged salads. On weeks I'm alone I find myself buying one of each and having one each day over the course of the week.
Variety keeps me from growing bored, but I'm not shopping for the cumulative 25 items that would go into making all the different salads. Which would bankrupt me. The salad mixes are between $3 and $4 each, so I spend about $20 on salad a week. I'm okay with that.
Sometimes I have a salad and a piece of fruit for lunch. But tonight I had my salad as the base for a piece of salmon I pan-seared with chile/paprika powder. I added half a jalapeño finely diced because I had it leftover from the day before. I also threw in some leftover caramelized red onions.
In total, my dinner took me about 10 minutes to prepare. The salmon cost $10, but I will save half for a later meal. Bringing the cost of tonight's meal to $10, including smoked paprika/chile powder.
As the salmon cooked, I assembled the salad.
In terms of clean up, I have one pan, one bowl, one cutting board, and one plate to wash.
Sandra Lee, I'm sorry for so much shade.
I'm glad I seemed to have been paying attention even as I dissed you in my mind.
I hope to return to from-scratch cooking, low and slow, filling houses with delicious aroma. When I have a house full of people to cook for again.
But when it's just me, it is more time, effort, and money than I want to invest.
In the process of making myself my quick easy semi-homemade meal, I discovered something I have known before but keep forgetting.
Food is love.
When you prepare food for yourself, it feels like being loved.
Preparing yourself good food is one of the greatest forms of self love there is.
So, my recipe for tonight's dinner:
Salmon Salad for Singletons
1 salmon fillet
1 elote pre-prepared salad from Trader Joe's
1/2 jalapeño, finely diced
2 T thinly sliced caramelized red onions
Trader Joe's smokey & hot chile powder
Canola oil
Salt and pepper
Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit,. Liberally season both sides of the salmon fillet with paprika, salt, and pepper. Heat oil in a saute pan. Place salmon, flesh-side down, into the hot oil and sear for four minutes. Turn the fish and place the saute pan with fish into the pre-heated oven.
Assemble the Trader Joe's salad in a bowl, add jalapeño and red onions, and mix with tongs to coat with dressing.
Remove the salmon from the oven after five minutes. Allow to rest for two.
Place salmon atop salad and enjoy.
Thank Sandra Lee. And Trader Joe's.
When not writing about culinary therapy, you can also find me writing about the following things: memoir writing, self-compassion, grief, gratitude, and brain food. Please follow any that are of interest. You can also find me on Substack, Medium, Patreon, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Linktr.ee, and my own website, Don't Sum Me Up. I'd love to connect wherever you are.