Kitchen Medicine

For many parents, feeding their children is easy and instinctive. For others, though, it is on the same spectrum in which Debi Lewis found herself: part of what felt like an endless slog to move her daughter from failure-to-thrive to something that looked, if not like thriving, at least like survival. The emotional weight of not being able to feed one's child feels like a betrayal of the most basic aspect of nurturing. While every faux matzo ball, every protein-packed smoothie that tasted like a milkshake, every new lentil dish that her daughter liked made Lewis's spirit rise, every dish pushed away made it sink.

Kitchen Medicine tells the story of how Lewis made her way through mothering and feeding a sick child, aided by Lewis's growing confidence in front of the stove. It's about how she eventually saw her role as more than caretaker and fighter for her daughter's health and how she had to redefine what mothering—and feeding—looked like once her daughter was well. This is the story of learning to feed a child who can't seem to eat. It's the story of growing love for food, a mirror for people who cook for fuel and those who cook for love; for those who see the miracle in the growing child and in the fresh peach; for matzo-ball lovers and the gluten-intolerant; and for parents who want to feed their kids without starving their souls.