The table is the loneliest furniture in the house. Cooking was never just food - it was for someone. Now the recipes are sized wrong, the chair opposite is a fact you eat next to, and the fridge fills with good intentions that go soft in the drawer.
First, lower the bar to the floor: in heavy grief, fed is the goal. Toast is dinner. Cereal is dinner. The same pasta four nights running is four dinners. Nutrition can be a spring project; right now you're keeping a grieving body fueled, and anything that achieves that counts.
Small real things that help
- Halve nothing - cook the full recipe on purpose and eat it twice more. Leftovers are tomorrow's kindness to yourself
- Change the geography: the good bowl on the sofa, the radio on, a different chair. You're not betraying the table; you're not ready for it, and that's different
- Put eating near company when you can - a friend's kitchen, a café with bustle, a weekly call timed to dinner. Chewing in silence is the hard part; borrow other people's noise
- Once in a while, cook their favorite anyway. Yes, it will hurt. It's also a visit
One day the kitchen will just be a kitchen again, mostly. Until then: fed is the goal, and you're allowed to meet it any way that works.