“The essential thing is to want to sing.” These words from the opening of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer brought me to tears the first time I read it. I had waited years before starting the book. On a very memorable plane flight from Amsterdam to London years ago, the man next to me had told me very lovingly about it. Our conversation involved Wimbledon (it being the Friday before the finals), ancestral spirits visiting, a jukebox in a brown café in Amsterdam, London estates, Puccini’s La Bohème and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. He was sure I would love it.

The strange thing was, I knew I would love it. Some day. It was not until years later that I sensed the moment was right and I picked up the book. It was right. I remember reading: “This is not a book. This is a song. I am singing. To sing, you do not need a guitar or a good voice…” The passage also involved some serious blasphemy and sexually explicit dirty phantasies. It did not put me off though. As if Miller’s language seemed to support the uncontrollable power of the want to want something, how primitive and aggressive it could feel to me sometimes. And so, while written from a very libertine and masculine perspective, I related to it.

To want something is to take responsibility, to be vulnerable. To want something is not necessarily beautiful or reasonable. There may be no use to it, no benefit apart from connecting to your wishes and acknowledging them. You don’t have to act on your wanting and yet you may. To want is to recognise yourself.

Maybe this is why it brought me to tears. I longed so much to want something without feeling guilty. I did want to sing and I was struggling. I couldn’t let my voice out. Which probably meant I did not want to sing in the Henry Miller sense of the word. Or maybe I did and I just needed a little more time. Maybe my singing was good enough as it was, even if a part of me was not singing along yet.

And so it was that, a couple of days ago, I realised I wanted something. I was in a bookshop, looking around at all the beautiful covers, all the inspiring ideas, all the touching stories (and some not so touching or inspiring probably), when I thought: “I want to write a cookbook.”

I have been writing this cookbook for years, imagining its overarching theme, which recipes I would include, what kind of illustrations. Should it have background stories, maps, graphics, art, poems? How do I communicate the spirit I want to give to people, for them to feel loved and trust themselves cooking? How do I embody this spirit? All to become part of the book I wanted to write some day. Maybe now the moment is right, to recognise wanting it. To want it full stop.

I want to write a cookbook. I want it to include my heritage from South-Limburgish cuisine (Maastricht and surroundings), covering vlaai, zoervleisj (beef stew), Christmas sausage rolls and New Year’s waffles. I want to show the exotic touches our family gave it, using Surinam rice for rice pudding and coconut biscuits for a chocolate and coffee biscuit cake. But also the African fabric table cloths and Bavarian ceramics we serve the food on.

I want to include the people, landscapes and cultures that I met and loved. Re-imagining Greek pítes, adding lavender to salads, learning from the Indian wisdom of spices. Cardamom! I want to retrace my grandmother’s balkenbrij (a type of black pudding) and adapt it to modern life and needs.

I want the book to show fasting and feasting, peace and joy, reflection and rebirth, cycles of regeneration, with the seasons, with emotional and physical developments. I want the book to feel like a welcoming home to you, where you will find love, a wish to take care of yourself and also the inspiration and practical tools how to do it. Your way. By watering your mouth, I want to give you an appetite for life.

The recipes in my cookbook will be a starting point, they will help you how to adjust them to your own preferences, needs and appetite, to what you have, and what is accessible and affordable to you. For you to trust your own senses and ideas and the unique dishes that will come from them, filled with your own love.

I want you to have a good time cooking. To find peace and nourishment there, when your world is falling apart. To feel in happy expectation of people coming to visit and celebrate together, whether it be a simple shared meal or a full feast.

I want to give you food without expectations, without judgement. I want to give you food as a way to care, nourishment, autonomy and connection.

I want to write a cookbook. Anyone interested to help me realise it?

With many thanks to Waterstones Amsterdam who were so kind to let me photograph their beautiful store to brighten my story.