Both personally exhilarating and scary to be launching a blog at all, I’ve timed the launch this week to coincide with and highlight Mental Illness Awareness Week, MIAW, October 2 – 8, 2011, coordinated by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health. For some of you, it may seem odd that I’m combining food and mental health in one blog, but for me it’s a natural fit, as I used cooking and eating good food to provide a creative outlet and re-discover my self-esteem during my situational depression in 2008. I recovered fully within a year supported by wonderful, professional help and boosted by the loving support of family and friends. Since then I’ve made some positive changes in my life – my work priorities and work environment have changed but I continue to cook and am committed to helping organizations and individuals to better understand and support mental health and total wellness.
The goal of MIAW is to “end the stigma associated with mental illness, and ensure better understanding and access to diagnosis and treatment” – if you’ve suffered a mental illness, I expect you’ve experienced the stigma, if you haven’t suffered a mental illness, trust me, it’s there. Check out the MIAW website http://www.miaw.ca/ to learn more about mental illness and what you can do to reduce the stigma.
At Least I Can Cook will continue beyond MIAW week and will include food and recipes in Let’s Eat, my thoughts on what individuals and organizations can do to better support wellness in the workplace in Anne-alyzing and my experience with and resources for mental health in Table Talk.
I owe thanks to many people. A large thank you to my family and friends who have loved me, eaten my cooking and totally supported me as I developed At Least I Can Cook. Special thanks to my technical team who have gotten me this far: Blog Captain, Sam Archibald (my talented son) who’s taught me how to blog, designed my “brand”, lent me his camera and believes in me; Jerry Lutz (Sam’s partner) who helped me buy my domain name and does other technical stuff beyond my comprehension, as well as the dishes after many Sunday dinners; and to Katie Tower (Sam’s colleague and friend, http://www.katietower.ca/), who wielded magic with her camera to capture the images which grace the banner of At Least I Can Cook.
Thanks for visiting my blog – I hope you’ll come back soon and often. Take good care.