Why did I abandon this blog so soon after starting it? It didn’t happen consciously. It just presented challenges I struggled to resolve, and I followed the path of least resistance.

Here were the challenges:

• The physical drain of taking quality photos was far greater than I expected. I could prepare a meal, or I could photograph it, but not both. Yet I felt photos were important. They convey a vital message that food can be the stuff of sensory delight. I was afraid the message of long blocks of text without photos would be “Food is all work with no play.” If you’re here, you may be hungry for the reminder that cooking can be beautiful.

• My natural style of writing is daydreamy and explorational. It has metaphors and stuff. I don’t do nuts and bolts well or with pleasure. But I also have cognitive difficulties and recognize that for many of us, nuts and bolts are all the the bandwidth we can spare for reading—especially if we need practical strategies for preparing tonight’s dinner.

• I felt like the overall list of strategies had said everything I had to say, and that anything further was belaboring the point.

• After years of being mostly housebound, I was losing my love for life. So a couple of years ago, I moved into a camper van conversion so I could move my house around (which is not something I recommend for everyone!) and fell in love with life again. But my awesome strategies became irrelevant. I have no oven, fridge (let alone freezer), or microwave—my mainstays. I have been learning how to cook in low-spoon ways in a whole other kind of kitchen, and I have been unsure whether any of my new finds would work for others.

Then one of my dearest friends developed chronic pain and autoimmune illnesses. Her lifestyle and conditions (let alone her digestion) could not be more different than mine. Yet her need for nourishment is the same. We began talking about cooking and the lack of resources for people with chronic pain and illness. Not diet resources—this community is awash with specialty diet protocols—or recipe books but strategic ones: how to use your energy to its best advantage to nourish yourself Every. Single. Day. This blog has, we hope, the potential to be a much-needed resource.

Michele will occasionally become a voice here, talking about her much different needs, struggles, and insights. One Spoon Cooking will change in other ways, too. I will include photos of beautiful places I’ve had the pleasure of resting in (because going to beautiful places and lying down in them is how I do #vanlife), with the occasional snapshot of pretty ingredients if it’s not too much work. Strategic posts will be organized in an easily accessed Nuts and Bolts section. Some posts will be about searches for solutions, because as life changes new ones need to be found. Some will be about attitudes toward food and how they are currently shaping our quality of life. We’ll do some book reviews as they seem helpful. I’ll explore strategies I’ve discovered since being in the van that I wish I’d known about in my house.

If there’s something you’re missing, some strategy you crave, please tell us in the comments. We will pool our resources and see if we can help. Our aim is to put our experience to work for us all, but especially those who may be new to diagnosis and overwhelmed, or whose illnesses have suddenly changed direction.

If you are reading this after all these years, I thank you. I’ve learned that we have never said all we can about food. Our need for it never ends, and our need for inspiration and connection around it never ends. So in a toast to inspiration and connection, I raise my virtual spoon to yours. Let’s get cooking.