This probably happened sometime in my childhood. My family would take week-long summer vacations on the Delaware shore, where we caught blue crabs and small bay fish to cook for dinner each night. One night, my father decided to attempt to cook the eels he had inadvertently caught in his traps. I  have nightmares to this day of flapping, bloody logs of slimy, black-skinned flesh, still flapping several seconds after they had been severed from the adjacent piece. I also recall wading in knee-deep water and feeling an eel slither against one ankle, and screaming in such a manner that it could be heard all the way in the other rental houses across the bay.

So back to the fish market in Chinatown with my friends: I had a slight anxiety attack once we located the eels on the bed of ice. They were greyish-black, slimy, and exceedingly large — not quite as scary as I had remembered them without all the blood but still pretty weird. But I wanted to make unagi, and thought it would taste so much better freshly made. I was also on a mission to convince my favorite local fishmonger, Blue Moon Fish, to carry eel, because they were so plentiful in the waters but were thought to be unsalable. So I managed to talk the Chinatown fishmonger into choosing the smallest eel in the ice. He picked up the fish like a long, floppy salami, slapped it onto the cleaning table and proceeded to gut it using scissors, his gloved hands, and a hose.

I took it home. The smell, once I opened the plastic bag, was indescribable. It wasn’t a rotten, sulfuric smell, but a weirdly metallic one, and I had researched enough to find that fresh eel naturally has an off-scent that must be tamed with careful preparation. I got discouraged: neither Elizabeth Andoh (Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen) nor Shizuo Tsuji (Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art) could help me in the fresh eel-preparation department. I scoured the Internet. I texted friends. I summoned my memory of eating fresh eel prepared numerous ways in Taiwan — they were selling it at the store, so there must be some way to prepare it, right? In the end, I came away with a satisfyingly fresh-tasting unagi by filleting the eel logs, grilling them, steaming them, marinating them in a sweet-soy glaze, and grilling them again. And every step of the way the eel got better — less scary, more familiar, even fun.

eel on its way to becoming unagi

This was all done in about two hours, but over the course of this time I conquered something that had plagued me for about two decades: my fear of eel. This isn’t a task that I’ll be faced with every day, but it’s one that I imagine will now pop up in due time, and that I’ll remember every time I enjoy an unagi sushi at a restaurant. The results were good when I made it, and when done by professional sushi chefs, they’re good as well. The only difference is that I’m not a stranger to the somewhat uglier, more grueling side of what I eat, and I’ll appreciate it all the more.

I’ll tell you what: I’m no sissy in the kitchen after many of these conquerings, either. But that only heightens my enjoyment of the dish in question. I was once designated lobster killer in a Hapa Kitchen dinner, when no one else had the stomach to slit live lobsters’ heads in half before cooking them. I got over this fear simply because I had done it before — in fact, had talked about doing so in my book, as well as roasting a whole turkey (the not-so-fun — at the time — task I was thrown one Thanksgiving). By doing just one of these things, just once, I was able to open up to a whole new level of appreciation for turkey, lobster, or eel. I think it can be done with just about anything.

It’s much better to be on the side of the lobster killer, or the unagi maker, when you’re sitting down to dine. Seeing the unsightly necessities of eating eel is a visceral experience that may change your perception of the dish for good. And then you realize that any creature that gives its life so that you can eat is beautiful — and if you ate it, then it’s a part of you now, too. And being afraid of your own human self would just be silly, now wouldn’t it?

An oft-heard joke goes, “When is a door not a door?” The answer: “When it’s ajar.” The joke works because the word “ajar” sounds just like the speaker is enunciating “a jar,” which is of course a completely different object than a door.

Likewise, we can encounter foods that may sound like, look like, and even taste like, say, juice. But it is instead water and high-fructose corn syrup with food coloring. The food may not supply sufficient Vitamin C, and its additives may even induce undesirable effects, but it satisfies the illusion of juice, and that is its primary purpose. We clearly don’t need more illusions in both food deserts as well as areas of plenty. What we need to come back to is a sense that food does serve a purpose, and to fashion our intake towards those we need most at any given time.

When is a soup not a soup, in my humble opinion? I would say when it’s made with dehydrated crystals of vegetable, meat, and monosodium glutimate, in a packet or bouillion cube. This weakens the resulting soup to a mere substitute for the healthful tonic it can very well be. A soup is especially good for healing, since the hot, liquid nature makes for ready absorption of vitamins and minerals. That is, if there is ample nutrition to be found. Probably, it’s made with the powdered stuff instead of steeping whole foods in broth because it’s lighter, non-perishable, and easier to ship. Is this a purpose you’d like to support most when having some soup?

Next time you sit down to eat, ask yourself, what is the primary purpose for which this food was prepared? Was it to delight and entertain the palate? Was it to quickly stave off hunger, like a peanut butter and jelly slapped together before running out the door? Or was it to turn a quick profit at the consumer’s expense? The answer has much to do with who was responsible for creating that food. If it was you, then you are in better control of making your meal purposeful. And most likely, you will.

At restaurants we see food that serves many purposes, but mostly they fall within the category of entertainment. They delight your palate; they look beautiful; they break creative boundaries; or they provoke wonder, as an intricately wrought plate of “modernist” cuisine might. If you go to a soup kitchen, of which there are many in New York, you’ll see that the purpose of food there is very different. It’s to feed and nourish, first and foremost. That alone is probably entertainment enough if you’re in line. Let’s take a moment, too, to consider that the purposes of entertainment can change over the years and be fickle; lobsters were once reserved for unhappy prisoners and indentured servants in Colonial New England, provoking a “lobster rebellion.” Nowadays, the creature is destined for indulging only those who can afford on a tasty meal. In other parts of the world, offal are delicacies, while in some, they’re waste; purslane can grow wild and unnoticed on piles of compost, or be consumed as a trendy salad green. However, some purposes are more lasting no matter what the fashion may be. These, like providing omega-3 fatty acids to protect against heart disease which lobster and most seafood does, serve a greater purpose.

It is my belief that food can satisfy so many bigger purposes than delighting or making one feel no longer full, we should exploit them as much as possible. And besides, the aforementioned two benefits easily come along with making food that serves more purpose, anyway. There is nothing wrong with enjoying food just for the taste or to become full. That’s essentially what a cookie does. Perhaps you’re looking to reward yourself or just celebrate — so be it! Just remember that when cooking, sourcing, or just choosing what to eat, there lies a purpose that you, above anyone else, can decide. Every time.

This brings me to a Reason of the Month that might seem contradictory to the cause: when you do eat out, you’ll feed your mind, too. Many have asked if I do eat out now, in the aftermath of two years of forging a strictly home-cooked way of life. I admit that yes, I do occasionally — and I enjoy treating those occasions as something to savor, a special occasion, indeed. It’s essentially the reason that I gave up the strict rule, aside from practical considerations. But when I do eat out, it’s different; it’s as mentally stimulating as it is physically.

Restaurants are a great feeding ground for ideas about ingredients, presentation, and cuisines. You might not be able to learn just how to produce a dish with step-by-step instructions, but then again, you can’t taste anything you read about in books, blogs or magazines. I don’t allow that it’s absolutely necessary in order to explore unfamiliar foods — that can be done in home environments, too — but it’s nonetheless an easy way to tap into new and exotic cuisines, especially when traveling.

When you know how to cook, you’ll be able to gauge what’s on your plate all the better, and reach new depths of appreciation for it (or the opposite). In fact, I don’t think anyone who comments about food in a restaurant can be in a very plum place to criticize if he or she never cooks for themselves. That’s like being a sportscaster and not knowing how to play the sport. The experience gleaned from so many times searing meat, or boiling eggs, or roasting carrots to caramelized perfection makes it easy to expand your repertoire and recreate dishes at home. Plus, it’s fun to contemplate all this while enjoying a restaurant meal.

So while I’m noshing on pig’s blood and stinky tofu snacks, just sit tight for some comprehensive recipe soon to come on those (ha, just kidding, I’ve got a keen eye on “stuff we like”). And I’m encouraged that all I’ve come to learn from cooking a lot will help bring them into good form in time. So, too, should you be on your next eating-out adventure — should you dare to deviate!

So, the sage plant in the garden was beginning to bud, a phenomenon itself I had never expected. To prevent the plant from sending all its energy to the flowers, instead of the coveted leaves used to season things, I nipped them all, as they say, in the bud. Then, these sage buds were so pretty I figured there had to be some good use for them. A few minutes later, I was pouring 96 proof Polish grain alcohol into a mason jar with them. (The grain alcohol was leftover from making a tincture with grapefruit peels for a beer.)

sage beginning to bud

the buds in a jar, about to infuse

I’d made butters, flavored oils and all sorts of edible stuff with these herbs, but never something for the toiletries shelf. So I had a half-baked notion of making some sort of sage cologne. I imagined myself filling a tiny bottle of the tincture and placing a handwritten label with “Sage” in flowing script, and daydreamed about putting it next to my handmade candles and soaps made from goose fat or something, like some crafty, witchy lady that I was not.

high-proof grain alcohol is poured over

It’s too bad the grain alcohol smelled like lighter fluid to begin with. And it continued to, after letting the sage leaves soak in a dark place for a few days, while I forgot about it.

But behold — the liquid turned a deep emerald-green, about the same as the Wicked Witch of the West’s face! Maybe I was onto something here, especially considering sage leaves aren’t that green to start off. The folks I showed this “tincture” to all thought it smelled “pretty good,” if very strong. Next time, I’m going to try to use a cleaner-smelling alcohol base and may have to do sage-infused cocktails sometime.

after three days

So it was another adventure, in figuring-it-out-yourself as you do-it-yourself. And even though this task is not yet completed to satisfaction, it goes to show how I come up with most recipes on this blog. Using what’s available often leads to experimentation with food, and dishes you’d never seen or heard of before. Sometimes, they impress; other times, cause distress — or pure amusement, as with this “perfume.”

Whatever the case, it’s nothing to sweat. And if there are no trials and errors, the triumphs — when you create something new and unique that’s great — wouldn’t make you half as proud. Let’s keep on tinkering, and putting fun recipes out in the world.

(And any suggestions on what to steep these herbs in next would be great!)

Plus, so many have asked how to make cooking with fresh produce more efficient, especially for one. What to do with leftover food? There is economy to eating locally and seasonally, when you consider how far you can stretch one bunch of produce. You can cook it throughout the week, and never get bored. All too often we’re smitten by more things than we know what to do on a market trip, and end up letting some of our bunches go bad. Save yourself the time, money and head-scratching by focusing on one fetching ingredient at a time. I’ve practically lived off of all these techniques, or some variation of them, for quite some time, and they never get old.

What kind of vegetables will they work with? Well, asparagus, for one. Or zucchini, cut into discs. String beans, broccoli, or any leafy greens at all. My suggestion is to use these techniques with a vegetable you’ve never even encountered or cooked with before. An heirloom something-or-other. You’ll make a new friend.

With Pasta, Butter, Lemon Juice & Parmiggiano

Add a little chili flakes, garlic, fresh herbs and good olive oil to your taste, too. This meal not only makes a sure-fire comfort when you’re alone in front of the TV, it works well as an elegant but simple dinner for company.

Stir-Fried with Chicken Over Rice

For a long time, Chinese stir-fries with a cornstarch-thickened garlic sauce was the only thing I knew how to cook. Swap in beef (thinly sliced flank steak, I’d recommend) or firm tofu chunks for the chicken as you please.

With Polenta and a Poached Egg

This quick meal can be made with with other quick-cooking grains (quinoa, couscous, even potatoes or oats) and any sauteed vegetable; it’s the oozing egg yolk that ties it all together. There’s something luxurious about that poached egg, and I just think it mushes really well with polenta.

In a Noodle Soup

Most vegetables can be wilted right into the pot of noodles for the last minute or so that they’re boiling. In that time, I like to mix a ladleful of the boiling water into a large noodle bowl, and stir in a few Chinese condiments or sauces (or miso paste, as in the link). Next, all the noodles, water, and veggies are transferred to their flavorful new “soup.” It’s an efficient way to cook the vegetable, as well as one of the most wholesome and lean techniques.

On a Sandwich with Anchovies, Capers and a Hard-Boiled Egg

Salty, tangy, eggy and satisfying, this sandwich cannot seem to fail. This is what I’d most likely make if I were packing up my lunch to go.

In Fried Rice with Everything (and Anything)

About as fun and easy as it gets to cook. Best made with leftover rice (because it’s drier and sticks less to the pan), it can take any chopped-up vegetable and a scrambled egg. These days, I up the ratio of vegetables to rice so that they’re nearly even — why not when those are the best part?

I was going to curl underneath a blanket or sink into a tub the minute I slammed the door shut getting home tonight. But, remembering that I had two pumpkins in tow (incredibly, still fresh and firm since Halloween), I turned on the oven to roast them instead. I don’t have a large apartment, so it became toasty pretty fast. And once the pumpkins had been halved, scooped of their seeds, and placed in the oven to slowly sizzle a while, it smelled like a toasting marshmallow over a campfire, too. Pumpkin-scented candles? Totally unnecessary, when you have this. And home-baked sugar cookies smell — and taste — much better than candles designed to smell like this, too.

It could be something much simpler that does this home-scenting trick, too: stirring cocoa into steaming milk on the stove, or making chai. I like to use my long nights or weekend days of staying home in the cold to simmer a chicken or vegetable stock. The longer, the better, for the constant waft of something delicious to come.

Aside from these more obvious appeals, your home will benefit from the frequency that you cook in more ways. A well-stocked freezer (that is, stuffed with frozen things) requires less energy it takes to keep it all frozen. So best to keep tubs of stock, leftovers and sauces in there at all times. If you have dry skin that’s exacerbated by the intense winter chill, you might not need to invest in a humidifier if you cook soups, stews and stock all the time (seriously, just stand over a bubbling pot a few minutes each day for a facial). Washing more dishes isn’t great, but your chapped, dry and scratchy hands can benefit from the soak. You can cook with your pajamas, a scarf and slippers on, and who can say that for going to a restaurant?

All told, the modern kitchen might not be able to compete with a rustic, 18th century hearth stove in the coziness category. But you might find yourself gravitating towards it in the winter. It’s where the heart is — and where the most heat is.

In the epilogue of The Art of Eating In, I bemoaned my oversight of home gardening as one of the restaurant-free food subcultures that I explored in its chapters. Thinking that my outdoor space-free residence would eliminate the option, I’d left out the very preface to cooking: growing the stuff. Fortunately, there have been many sage leaders in doing just that, even in the tiniest urban crevices they can find, and their voices are getting some much-deserved attention. Last month, Just Food paid a lively tribute to the pioneering food advocate, Joan Gussow, who at one point during the ceremonies quipped that she’d originally wanted to title her classic memoir, This Organic Life, “Eating My Lawn.” So since writing the book, I’ve been inspired to close the gap between agriculture and what’s on my plate, both in theory and actual, trowel-wielding practice. This time, I am so not alone in my quest.

From community plots to schoolgrounds to offices to the White House, edible gardens are cropping up all over the place. Which means a lot more food is being produced and prepared at home. Whether for economic reasons, a distrust of processed foods, or pure fun, home vegetable gardening is taking off — and it’ll take us straight to our kitchens, too. Who else is going to cook all the stuff you grew? And what better reason to not eat out than a couple black beauty eggplants hanging from the vine, a confetti of ripe cherry tomatoes, and a fragrant basil plant in need of some trimming? You’re three-fourths of the way to some killer eggplant parm.

If you don’t have a yard, lawn or acreage of your own, you can still forge your way into growing a few goodies for yourself this season. Fire escapes and windowsills are good places to start. You can join a community garden, or spend a day volunteering at community farms like Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, Added Value and the soon-to-be Brooklyn Grange for more extensive gardening exposure. Live in Detroit, and you can guerilla-garden in a vacant lot, as many have done. Sign a petition for the Peoples Garden NYC if you want to see fruits and vegetables in front of City Hall. Or, check with your landlord if you can use the roof.

The roof of one local brewery is where I’ve been greening my thumb this spring, and I hope to share that journey with you. Sixpoint Craft Ales based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to be exact, and all the photos here were taken on it. There are dozens of varieties of mostly organic and heirloom vegetables growing on it, a rainwater collection system (so as to not waste tap water), a compost bin, and now, four egg-laying chickens in a rooftop coop, which I recently wrote about on markbittman.com. They’re all doing great.

It would seem I’m not the first one to spill this news to you, but I will share another update. In the next month, I’ll be transitioning out of this blog and into a new one, which incorporates my rooftop endeavors. Lunch at Sixpoint, where cooking, green roof gardening, and beer collide. It should be hella fun, and I hope you’ll follow my move there. I dearly love Not Eating Out in New York, but in the three and a half years I’ve been writing it, feel that it’s evolved far from a diatribe on restaurant culture in New York, to a more fluid conversation about food, what we value about it, and how to have lots of fun cooking and sharing it. So it just seems ripe to give this dialogue a new home base. There will still be plenty of recipes, and budget-savviness will still be king. In the meantime, posts may slow down on this blog as it gets ready to launch. Stay tuned, pitch in any suggestions, and as always, be excellent to each other.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” –Albert Einstein

(Still gotta love quotes.)

Therefore, when a waiter pulls a chair a few inches away from the table for me to sit down in, I am appreciative of the gesture, but ultimately, would have preferred doing so myself. Most of the time, at least. Don’t get me wrong, there is an art to serving at a fine restaurant, just as there is one to preparing the meals (but we already know how I feel about that). It’s a tradition invented and perfected by the French, and which many others have tried to imitate. But there can be a fine line between being hospitable and just being annoying. As a friend once remarked, after a waiter had interrupted our conversation to ask for the second time how our food was, “It’s like they’re fishing for compliments!”

Restaurants might misfire at providing service, like this, but it’s the customer who has the concept all wrong if he or she patronizes them more than they really need. In a few short decades, we’ve come to regard restaurant — whether sit-down, take-out, delivery or street cart — food as everyday, from being held mostly for special occasions. I joke at my readings and classes that it seems that in New York, we have it the other way around: cooking at home is a big production, a special occasion, while dining out is the de rigeur. So naturally, our expectations and understanding of food have become skewed. We want this, we don’t want that, we want this on the side, we think restaurants should hurry up and serve us quicker and quicker. Maybe we should just give them a break — literally.

Being doted on rather than doing-it-yourself is something that can seep into one’s psyche over time, too. I can say from the DIY stance that this made me feel more empowered in general, to cook for myself and my friends. On the other end of the spectrum, having more of your worldly needs taken care of by specialists inspires reliance rather than responsibility. We pass it on to our kids, too. We live in an era where children are often taught how to place an order with wait staff before being taught to peel an orange. This lack of direct contact with food preparation has other detriments, too, not knowing what food is, in particular — just take a look at these elementary kids on Jaime Oliver’s Food Revolution scratch their heads at the sight of tomatoes. I used to find it cute to see little kids ordering off a menu, because it seemed so precocious. Now the real picture of novelty might be helping mom bake a birthday cake instead of buying one at a shop.

It’s not that I have anything against the various service industries in themselves, and the talent that so many exhibit within it. It’s just that I don’t need it all the time. Let’s face it, none of us do. And we’d probably enjoy something like fine dining even more if it was a rarity. Some people — myself included — may never learn for ourselves the intricacies of manicures, while others might find that cooking never strikes their fancy. But being active and open to learning a few new trades now and then rather than leaving it up to others has personal — and maybe personality — benefits.

On the other hand, I recently made an appointment with a facialist whom an old friend had highly recommended. I had never had a facial before, but was touched that this friend had thought so much of her facialist to send an email about it, out of the blue. So I went. Over the next seventy minutes, I laid on my back with my face and neck exposed to a series of being lubricated, smoothed, steamed, scrubbed, poked and massaged, to a softly playing CD of Om chanting. I was so relaxed toward the end of it that I actually fell asleep, like a baby. And my skin felt like that of one when I awoke. It was a marvelous experience, and I’d like to do it again. But not every day, of course.

By the way, all you local ladies, that facialist’s name is Diane at BeWellBK. I highly recommend.

On the latest episode of Let’s Eat In, four of the five food bloggers I’d asked to take the Week of Eating In challenge came on air as guests, and we had a powwow about how it had gone. At one point, upon being asked what was most difficult about eating in for a week straight, Marc from No Recipes said that he felt like, “we were all in this together.” And that had helped him bluster on. From our separate kitchens, separate blogs, and separate lunches, dinners and breakfasts (only if there was time), a team mentality was forged, and it was encouraging. But even though this challenge was a very deliberate, controlled experiment, with us subjects making it a point to not eat out, a community of cooks who prefer doing so at will is growing steadily, it seems.

This observation, of course, is coming from a source distinctly slanted in favor of more everyday home cooking, for no other purpose than just to eat. But I will say that the Week of Eating In was not my idea — it was Huffington Post Green’s. When Katherine Goldstein and Adam Estes wrote eloquently about the eco-conscious potentials of cooking and eating in, and called on readers to take the pledge for a week, we didn’t really know how it would go. But more than 1,500 people signed up, and several other bloggers wrote about their week. An innocuous slideshow of winter recipes from my archives was compiled for the Green page, and it received a wild number of hits and comments — for a brief moment of Zen, appearing in the top five most viewed column on the site, below Pamela Anderson’s “barely-there jumpsuit.”

who knew HuffPost readers were such foodies?

The chorus continues, as I view my incoming links, and I’m deeply humbled as well as inspired by these tales from other kitchens. From Serious Eats cooking three recipes from my book (and quite well, from the photos of that bread!), to blogs like Forking Tasty and The Young and Hungry making others, or taking up brown-bagging cues, or writing about the merits they’ve found most beneficial to eating in, I’m feeling the team effort, indeed. There is a not-so-quiet revival in home cooking, for the unlikeliest set: young, busy urbanites. And beyond: even my Aunt Amy, one of the few family members who was spared of mention in the Art of Eating In, fell in love with her homemade version of san bei gi, according to Facebook photos that she tagged me in (no, that was not me chopped up and sprinkled with Thai basil), and she doesn’t cook too much normally. Perhaps the craziest compliment to home cooking that’s come my way recently was from an acquaintance who’s in a band in Brooklyn, and as such doesn’t have much time to cook in between practice and travel. But, so compelled to “stop spending and love the stove,” he decided to start writing a blog himself “documenting my continued denouncement of restaurants.” I can’t wait to check that one out.

What’s next for not eating out, if so many people were to adopt it that it’s no longer anti-mainstream? What happens if everyone else jumps off the cliff? (For the record, doing the opposite of what everyone else seemed to be — ordering in, and taking out for almost every meal — was what got this blog started in the first place.) I never imagined a paradigm shift might take place, and am sure that it still hasn’t or won’t yet for some time, at least not in New York. But for the time being, seeing others cook more at home has been empowering. We’re in it together, and that keeps me plowing on. And in the near future, I plan to expand the scope of making food to include growing it, too. More on that soon.

the start of a new season

I know this is not a pleasant topic for anyone. But chances are, if you’ve been eating restaurant food throughout your life, this has probably happened to you at least once. So sorry for bringing back the bad memory. And for this thought: what about the particles, germs, and other human artifacts that are in our food, too, but that we can’t see? Creeping, crawling, migrating into food, because they just do, in even the most sanitary kitchens.

When you go to a restaurant, your trust is in their hands, literally, and you trust that those hands are clean. Unless that trust is broken (like from finding a hair in the food, or becoming sick afterward), you don’t have reason not to. When cooking at home, you don’t have to operate on guesswork and faith — you know that you washed that spoon, rinsed that pot, and above all, have pretty clean hygiene. That is, if you do and did.

On the other hand, hair happens. It happens when I cook for myself. Naturally, I try not to let it get into food, and in most cases I think I’d be able to spot it before it winds up on a plate, or fork. It doesn’t always work. I’ve found hair in loaves of bread that I’ve baked. I was mortified to hear, a few months later, that at one of the first meals I’d cooked at home for a date, he’d found a strand of hair in my homemade linguine (I should’ve made “angel hair” instead). I suppose I could wear a hairnet in the kitchen and that’s always an option. If this isn’t enough to gross you out entirely, there is a rare disorder of people eating their hair, so unless that’s your thing, you can rest assured of not being at the pinnacle of hair consumption if any of this has happened with you, too. (The old saying, “You are what you eat” just got weirder.)

But herein, a glimpse of my point. Hair, and the rest of one’s bodily effects, is just more palatable when it’s your own. Call it fickle or unfair, or just a fact of life: we live with our germs, our bodies are ours, so what could be icky about any of that in our mouths? So no, I didn’t throw away the loaf of bread with a strangely twisted strand of hair that poked out of one piece, because there was no mystery as to whose it was. And if I found a piece of hair in a food that a friend, family member or acquaintance cooked, then I’d just use my own judgment about whether I trusted him or her enough to remove it shrug it off.

I’ve always praised the act of cooking with other people or trying their homemade food as a good way of getting to know them better. It brings a new dimension of peoples’ personalities to light, watching how they chop and dice, teamworking on a time-sensitive dish, etc. It’s intimate, and now we can attribute that to a more physical reality. You can end up eating one another, sort of, to an extent, sharing germs and such. That’s why knowing not only where my food came from but who made it are two mottos close to my fork.