The Emotional Eating Cookbook describes and explores my personal relationship with food, specifically that of trigger foods: sets of go-to foods during moments of negative emotions. These cravings usually (d)evolve into a binge, a period of uncontrolled and compulsive overeating, and ultimately, these sessions are all about numbing emotions or self-loathe. The Emotional Eating Cookbook is a taxonomic, if one might say, confessional diary of the negative emotions behind trigger foods. This novel project brings together the areas of psychology, photography, and culinary tradition into a visual cornucopia of tension, desire, and guilt.

This project is obviously inspired by cookbooks and food photography, but also emotional food journals. An emotional food journal is a technique and tool recommended for people suffering from emotional overeating. The idea is to write down what you ate, when you ate, how you felt, whether you were physically (versus emotionally) hungry, and how you felt afterward. Tracking the emotions and the eating would help determine what sort of emotions drives one to the kitchen, and which kinds of food are likely to be consumed. Rather than taking the form of a journal, each page of the cookbook features a recipe for a particular trigger food. The book follows the style of traditional cookbooks, but specifically that genre of food memoirs including the author’s personal narrative imbued with nostalgia. Thus, the text associated with the recipes includes diaristic narratives on emotions, mechanisms, preparation, and tips on how to “guiltily” enjoy these trigger foods. There’s no doubt that these associated texts, introductions, and other narratives are imbued with irony, cynicism, and sarcasm.

Emotional Eating Cookbook
digital chromogenic print, 2015, 11″ x 8.5″