The Screens that Fed Us
As a kid, I’d spend nights after dinner watching MasterChef with my family on the couch. I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but I didn’t need to. All I cared about were the plates on the screen, food that looked like magic. A few years later, Jamie Oliver dominated our TV. The way he cooked, laughing and throwing handfuls of herbs like confetti, made food feel exciting, alive.
Fast-forward to now. Movies like Chef, and shows like The Bear or Chef’s Table, have become my comfort watches, rituals I return to when I want to remember why I love food so much. And if they make me feel that way, I know I’m not alone.
Food content has exploded. Cooking competitions, chaotic kitchen shows, street-food adventures, home chefs recreating Michelin dishes with nothing but a frying pan, it’s everywhere. Whatever branch of the tree you shake, there’s something ripe waiting to fall. But what we don’t always talk about, while consuming all this food content (pun intended), is why it hits so deeply. The way food makes us feel. The way it connects us.
When I watch Chef, sure, it’s about the food. The legendary grilled cheese Jon Favreau makes for his son, or the spaghetti Aglio e Olio handed to Scarlett Johansson under low light. But beneath the sizzle and butter, that film is really about love and connection. About a father trying to reach his son when words fall short. Food becomes the bridge, something to say the things that are hard to say out loud.
The Bear does the same differently. It’s chaotic, loud, and painfully real, but the food isn’t the point—it’s the thread. Each dish, each shift, each argument in that kitchen is about people learning to carry each other through grief, purpose, and chaos. For Carmy, cooking is a way to stay connected to his brother long after he’s gone.
That’s what I think we forget sometimes, scrolling through endless plates of food online. We forget that behind every dish, there’s a story. Behind every bite, someone is trying to connect, heal, or simply say “I love you.”
For me, food has always been my way of doing that. Bringing dumplings to a friend stuck on a long bar shift. Cooking lunch for my mom while she worked from home. Baking a carrot cake for someone who just lost someone important. I’ve never been great with words, but food—food always said it for me.
So maybe that’s what all of this is about. Not just eating well, or cooking beautifully, or watching the next great food show. Maybe it’s about remembering what food really is: an act of care. A small, delicious way to tell someone you’re there.
Because honestly, I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t be cheered up with a good plate of food.
