At the age of 32, I have been married, divorced, broken someone’s heart, and had my heart broken into a million little pieces, twice. But I have also fallen in love.

I have fallen in love with cooking—not to nourish and bring pleasure to others, but to nurture myself. Because I am worthy of that care. Because I deserve it.

There is a Japanese word, kuchisabishii, that means “lonely mouth” or “longing to have or put something in one’s mouth”. It’s eating just to satisfy a craving. In the aftermath of my divorce, I had a lonely mouth. I think I’d spent so long feeding and nourishing others I forgot it was safe for me to swallow. To be in the moment, to soak it all in, to savour the pleasure against all the pain.

I endeavoured to replicate at home some of the dishes I was craving most, and I allowed myself the luxury of time in which to do that. The time to spend a day making salty, sweet, starchy broths and stocks. To roll pasta dough and fill it. I began to cook dishes that took me somewhere.

I spent close to 48 hours attempting to replicate a tortellini in brodo I had eaten in Bologna. I began with the broth itself –using the flesh and bones of chicken and pork and beef, as well as whole pieces of celery and carrot and onion –cooked slowly and then strained into a container and refrigerated overnight. I minced mortadella, prosciutto and pork loin for the filling, and rolled wafer-thin sheets of pasta, folding the filling into squares to make perfect little pockets. I made so many of them I was still rolling tortellini in my dreams that night.

• I learnt to make frittata by whisking three eggs with salt, pepper and parmesan and adding it to a frying pan of spinach that I had sauteed in olive oil. I then put it under the grill on high until it was golden and cooked through.
• I stuffed capsicums with halloumi and pork mince.
• I baked prawns with salty feta crumbled over the top and filled pockets of pita with it.
• I perfected cheese souffle, which I watched rise through the oven door while sitting on my kitchen floor.
• I discovered the subtle art of a potato tortilla, and the comfort of a pea and ham hock soup.
• I jazzed up Japanese curries with the addition of soft egg omelettes and crispy chicken karaage.
• I learnt to make rich and creamy tonkatsu broth and then paired it with home-made ramen noodles.

• In celebration of my independence, I fried the most sublime butter-basted piece of barramundi, with skin so crispy it snapped as I bit into it.
• For a snack, I coated lamb cutlets in panko crumbs and sea salt, or steamed a medley of green vegetables and ate them with my fingers.
• I made rolled pork roasts with crackling and all the trimmings – mostly so I could have leftovers for roast meat sandwiches. There was roast pumpkin and crispy potatoes, which of course I cooked in duck fat with rosemary and sea salt. And naturally, there was an obscene amount of gravy. I savoured every mouthful on my own.

So much of my time in the kitchen was centred around the discovery that I was at my most productive and creative during periods of solitude. As Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet, “Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.”

Solitude. It’s the joy of giving yourself permission to date yourself. Of discovering that you are, in fact, the best date that you can ever take out – or, better yet, cook for.

These days, I shop often – once every two or three days – and I am deliberate about it, only buying the things I will consume.

Week after week I find myself placing the same items in my shopping basket:

1. A loaf of uncut Sonoma miche to indulge my love of delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.
2. A dozen free-range eggs, which I hard-boil, cover in sea salt flakes and anoint in olive oil for the perfect snack.
3. A capsicum – always red – which I salt and cover in olive oil then chargrill to serve alongside guacamole, a crisp hash brown and a fried egg for a Mexican breakfast wrap.
4. And, finally, fresh basil leaves and pine nuts so I can whip up Pa’s pesto when I need my fix of home.

But still, there are also moments when I want to treat myself to a three-course feast for one, poring over my many cookbooks and challenging myself to cook something luxurious and labour-intensive to enjoy all on my own. Because I now know that I am worthy of my own love, care and cooking. That I should take the time and effort to feed myself.

Recently, I decided to make myself a gourmet dinner. I made a playlist of ’60s love songs and the filthiest martini of olive brine, dry vermouth and vodka (never gin). As I started to cook, I was serenaded by the voices of Ella, Marvin and Aretha, and my version of self-love and self-care began. I started with a wedge of deliciously creamy French brie recommended by my cheesemonger, Penny, which I ate with a crusty French baguette.

The beautiful rib-eye steak from my local butcher was salted and seared (we solo diners don’t treat ourselves to steak nearly enough) and served with a creamy pepper sauce. The first bite was so tender and so buttery it made me question whether I could ever be a virtuous vegetarian. The accompanying leafy greens and vegetables had been sourced from my local Saturday morning market.

Dessert was my favourite offering, a tiramisu perfectly portioned for one that truly is better than sex.

By starting simply and rediscovering my joy for cooking, I find I am craving more. I’m starting to find a sense of play in cooking. A sense of stillness. Of presence. Of joy. I find myself returning to what had initially made me fall in love with baking but without the attendant anxiety, without the desperate acts of service that cooking had morphed into.

I’m more confident, and I find more pleasure in the process of cooking and devouring delicious self-sustaining dishes than I ever had in one-night stands. I find I’m beginning to like myself again.

As I slowly began my love affair with myself, I’ve also realised that I love to take myself out for dinner. I spend hours researching the restaurants I want to eat at and the food I want to order, and often arrive without a booking to find a spare seat at the bar or a tiny single table hidden in the back corner of the restaurant, surrounded by couples or groups of family and friends.

Solitude. It’s the joy of giving yourself permission to date yourself.

Initially, I was intimidated by the idea of eating alone, self-conscious about my solitary state, but I soon got over it. I’ve discovered that, like cooking, dining alone is an activity in which I find myself being completely present. I put away my phone and either read a book or, better still, watch the people around me and sometimes engage in conversation with those seated beside me, or the amazing staff who are serving me.

My favourite restaurant to visit is Bar Vincent in Darlinghurst. I have been there so often and developed such a close friendship with the owners, Sarah and Andy, that I am now able to order half or three-quarter portions of pasta dishes – the perfect solution for a solo diner whose eyes are far bigger than her stomach.

I order lambrusco and eat crumbed scallops, copious amounts of their house-made bread with salted butter, hand-made capellini with pipis, and tortellini in a creamy bechamel sauce with freshly grated nutmeg.

One night, as my tortellini arrived, and a generous glass of light Italian red was poured, I began to speak to my neighbours at the bar, who ended up drinking and dancing with me on Oxford Street into the early hours of the next morning. It was wonderfully unexpected, as nights like those can be when you open yourself up to the unknown.

These dates with myself have taught me that allowing yourself to be cooked for and to be served are as important, if not more important, than doing it for others.

I am overwhelmingly grateful for my many months of solitude. They were hard. But, they helped me to rediscover myself. To fall in love not with someone else, but with myself.

Just as I had once discovered the joy of cooking for others, the joy of serving and feeding and sustaining and giving and providing, this time around I learnt there is also an immense joy to be found in cooking or dining out and having an extravagant meal all on your own. A meal that no one else will taste. That no one else will judge. Its sole purpose is to nourish and sustain just one person – you.

Where to dine solo

Grab a seat at the bar and treat yourself to an indulgent date – with yourself.

Heartbake: A bittersweet memoir by Charlotte Ree is published by Allen & Unwin, $39.99. Buy now