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Arts & Entertainment

Cooking Your Way Through A Break-up

Hobokenite Cate Wells is working on a cookbook aimed to help women see cooking as therapy at stressful times.

Chop. Add. Mix. Repeat.

These tasks sound simple enough, but do you realize how much they can help you deal with stressful situations? Hobokenite Cate Wells certainly does. She is co-authoring The Breakup Cookbook, aimed to help single ladies everywhere cope with stressful times.

The recipes are designed to help create balance when it seems lost; to give girls an alternative to curling up under a blanket on the couch and wallowing or walking by their ex-boyfriend's house to see if the lights are on. Wells and co-author Heather Quinlan help them pour the energy into something positive.

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The motto is "catharsis through cooking," and the duo believes that, with their help, you'll be "sautéing your way back to sanity" in no time at all.

Despite what the name implies, it helps you with all kinds of stress. 

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"It's definitely, even for people that don't love cooking, it's a very therapeutic way to work through any type of emotion," says fan Tricia Miller, who has used several of the site's recipes.

"It's a way to take your mind off the situations you're in and have fun if you're having a bad day," she adds.

Wells and Quinlan create simple recipes with clear steps that anyone can master. Many are "inspired by something, but simplified," says Wells, "so that they have the most flavor for the least effort." With short ingredient lists, the recipes are geared towards small Hoboken kitchens.

The idea for The Breakup Cookbook was born when Quinlan was going through a rough breakup herself.

"She needed to put all of that energy and anger into something positive," Wells says. "Cooking is very therapeutic at the end of a long day."

The book focuses on dishes for one, such as Wells' favorite, Easy Cheesy Spinach Pasta. They stay away from exotic ingredients, opting instead for fresh, local items that readers—in Hoboken and other urban areas, at least—can pick up on their way home from work (perhaps at the weekly downtown and uptown farmer's markets). They are sure to offer substitutions in case an ingredient isn't readily available.

Cooking-as-therapy is a concept that Wells understood even as a kid, though she wasn't exactly an iron chef. She laughs as she recalls breaking up with a boyfriend in eighth grade. She was in the process of making a salad before the two broke up over the phone. After they call, she says the first thing she did was go back to the salad. "I don't even know why," she says, "It just felt right."

Her cooking expertise started to develop while working in the food publishing industry. But when she moved to Hoboken in April 2003, after an ex-boyfriend introduced her to the Mile Square earlier that year, she admits, "I knew how to cook tacos and pasta. That's about it."

Now, she says cooking is her "everyday go-to routine."

Living in Hoboken, surrounded by bodegas and famous bakeries and delis, makes experimenting with new recipes an adventure in itself.

Wells grabs her mozzarella at Fiore's, and her produce at the farmer's market or Sobsey's Produce; corn husks and other specialty foods at Ultramarino's and The Little Grocery. Many of the recipes shy away from expensive meats.

While they do not yet have a publisher, they are continuing to build a fan-base through facebook and their website.  

On the site, recipes are broken into comical categories. There are denial desserts, angry appetizers, and acceptance parties. There is Boy Thyme, where the pair's friends offer recipes created by guys, complete with videos where the men are sporting aprons.

Not up for a long trip to the grocery store? Check the site's full section of five-ingredient recipes. Miller says these are a few of her favorites.

"I am not a chef myself," she says "I don't really cook at all. But the site's encouraged me to try things. It's definitely opened me up."

Wells notes that she is "not advocating to stuff your face" during stressful times. Most of the recipes are healthy and the ingredients are listed in single servings, so that there won't be too many leftovers tempting a stressed out singlette.

Of course, there are also more than a few dessert ideas. The key is learning to make the food, rather than just grabbing it on the run.

As The Breakup Cookbook's Facebook pages promises:  "Eat a slice of cheesecake and you'll feel better for a minute; learn how to make cheesecake and you're ready for whatever comes your way."

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