There are for each of us areas where our passionately held beliefs rub up against our limitations. Creative ambition warring with time constraints. Fatigue fighting desire for social connections. A showdown between chronic illness and the need to hold a steady job.

For me, one of these areas of tension is a conflict between my physical ability and my overwhelming desire to cook with whole, fresh foods. Cooking fantastic wholesome dinners for my family is a deeply held value of mine. It feeds my desire for pleasure, for creative expression, for family, for community, and good health. I love nothing better than finding ways to use my farm share, researching and reinventing recipes, sourcing local ingredients, sharing food with family and friends.

But it’s hard. I shop with a grocery shopping buddy. We pick up our farm share as a team (on two days – one for pick your own, one for the vegetable pickup). I call upon my husband and my housemate to be my prep cooks constantly, outsourcing my chopping, peeling, and grating to hardier hands than mine.

And even with all of this help–and all of the skills I’ve developed in good kitchen ergonomics, in asking for the help I need, in trying not to take on more than I can handle by judiciously sprinkling my weekly menu planning with leftover nights and ordering in, even in buying some of my ingredients pre-prepared–even so, it takes about twice the effort for me to put that food on the table than it would for someone without a chronic condition.

I do it anyway.

And that is why I am a culinary superhero.