On Rations, Recovery, and Real Food
The empty nest syndrome works in unexpected ways. For me, once the house fell suddenly childless after decades of juggling single motherhood with a demanding job and household obligations, I let one thing go. I stopped cooking.
It didn’t happen overnight. It happened slowly, steadily. I didn’t enjoy cooking for one and eating alone, and I became adept at organising my meals so the cooker and oven could remain silent. For over a decade I lived on green juices, salads, protein bars, fruit, yoghurt, cheese, low-carb bread, and occasionally a bit of fish. Oh — and high doses of the very best supplements, carefully chosen for my age and my meat-free diet.
It worked. For me.
It saved time. It saved cleaning kitchens. It saved me from staring at a plate that had lost its attraction the moment it was served.
Mind you, I used to be quite a cook. In my twenties I even ran a restaurant with friends in Amsterdam — no Michelin star, admittedly — but the satisfied nods around the table after a Hannah-cooked meal were proof enough that I had the skill. I simply no longer had the juju.
And now, in 2026, I’ve started cooking again.
Not as a New Year’s resolution, but almost out of necessity. I fell ill with pneumonia, and while illness has many causes, I know I was overworked and, in a quiet way, starving my body. The overwork showed itself as apathy; the starvation was almost literal.
When I finally abandoned my regime and heated up an Indian dahl with rice, frozen leftovers from the last time the children came to dinner, it tasted astonishing. I was ravenous. It felt as if my palate, my stomach, my intestines were all singing hallelujah at once.
There was only one complication: I couldn’t go to the shops.
My eyes roamed the kitchen shelves, past rows of protein powder and a dwindling supply of bottled vegetable juices in the fridge. But hunger — or rather, the return of appetite — makes us resourceful. After rummaging through freezer, fridge, and cupboards, I managed to produce one comforting meal after another: green peas with mashed potato and a bit of mackerel; a real pancake (not the tasteless protein kind) with defrosted forest fruits and ice cream; mac and cheese with leftover leek and onion.
It helps to have been a cook. You learn to improvise.
My pottering about in the kitchen with only the bare minimals took me back to the cooks of the Second World War, to the ingenuity required under rationing, the necessity of making do with what was at hand.
What struck me most was not the scarcity of my provision cupboard, but how quickly appetite becomes specific. It isn’t long-shelf-life food we crave when access disappears, but warmth, softness, something familiar. The wartime cooks understood this instinctively. They didn’t just plan to survive; they planned for morale. Puddings mattered. Bread mattered. So did the small luxuries that made an ordinary day feel human.
It reminded me of the wartime recipe book I created last year, a project that resonated far more widely than ever expected. For those who haven’t downloaded it yet, I’ll share the link below. And I will now start planning the promised book 2, perhaps with some of my own contributions.
Here’s my favourite recipe from that first collection. These days I’m well enough to shop again, and I confess I now add fresh herbs — parsley, chives, anything green. Once your appetite returns, it turns out you don’t want to give up on your greens either.
