We were not a cooking-friendly household. I worked, he worked, we got to the end of the day and we got takeout. It was modern day love. Until we had a child. A very small, very powerful little person.

I am a practical person- some of the time. I am a woman of science- most of the time. But as a mother, I am a sucker for “what’s best” for my child.

When it was time to start solids, we looked at jars, we looked at organic packaged meals, we looked at simple home cooked food. I didn’t want any of it. I was a fiend for nutrition. I began to read every reputable, evidence-based source on starting solids and nothing was good enough. I started the most ridiculous pantry list and suddenly I was a culinary demon.

I don’t eat meat. I turned vegetarian at the age of 9 because I found out what farm to table actually meant and I didn’t think fluffy could be food anymore. My daughter now eats homemade paté made with organic chicken liver that I source from the local grocer and blend myself using an immersion blender that I never used to own guided by a recipe designed by a qualified paediatric nutritionist. And I cannot seem to help myself.

She needs iron? I have got every iron source known to man in my kitchen and you bet your bottom dollar it ends up in my daughter’s diet in some form or the other. I make spinach and beetroot frittatas, lentil pasta with homemade organic grass fed beef meatballs, baked fritters of every kind. I own five different types of flour. What have I become?

What is it about becoming a parent that makes you crazy in the kitchen? My daughter could be a masterchef judge by the time she’s five with the culinary palate she’s acquiring.

And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. She’s on 3 meals a day now and I have fully embraced this new parenting role even though it grates against my inner feminist sometimes that I am constantly in the bloody kitchen. Cooking is becoming quite therapeutic in my post partum journey and watching my daughter develop her oral motor skills is a reward in itself.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m not a reformed purist. There are days my husband and I chow down on our Ubereats while my daughter jubilantly flings her organic well-done ribeye at the dogs and everything is very not organised chaos. But that steak has been hand picked lovingly and made by her parents under the shared belief that if every thing else is a mess, our little girl is worth it all, every single time.