izzy is a terrible cook, we know this. it's a running joke, how terrible she is in the kitchen. it's in fics and headcanons and memes and it's not incorrect! her food is canonically the worst. but i don't think we talk enough about how, no matter how bad her food tastes, she turns around and tries again. why she's still in the kitchen, why the hcs of her being a terrible cook last well into her adulthood when she very well could have just given up cooking, left it to others, relied on take out. we never talk about why she cooks.
i can't help but see this young girl who discovered at a tender age just how fractured her family was, how easy it would be to shatter this home that she relied on, that she wanted her baby brother to feel safe in. she's always been strong, capable, unwilling to back down from a fight, but here was this fight that she had no control over, this battle that she was forced to bare the burden of without having any way to relieve it. but cooking. cooking was something she could do, right? families had to eat. could a dinner table act like glue, keeping the pieces of their failing home pinched together even as max got older and their parents stopped having reasons to talk to one another? it was worth a shot. it was something she could do, without having to reveal what she knew. it was normal enough, a girl wanting to cook, and she was gonna use that as a weapon.
of course, isabelle is a terrible cook, and even if her family was so inclined to all sit in the kitchen together for a meal, they wouldn't enjoy it. not that they were so inclined, not that her cooking ever did much but annoy her brothers. but she kept going. kept trying, kept insisting that they try her food, kept filling the fridge with it.
and then max is killed. and then her parents get divorced. and then her dad also dies. still, izzy cooks. still, she tries new recipes and finds people to feed. she knows it won't fix anything. it's too late for that. but now there's comfort in it. like holding a whip in her hands, like feeling her pendant around her neck. in the kitchen, at least she's doing something. families need to eat, and she's gonna remind them until she can't anymore that she will be there paving the way to make sure the people she loves most are cared for, that they have something that feels like home. and the stove and the pot and the spoon in her hand are just another weapon she wields--as an offense, a defense, and a tool to push back her own fears and sorrows.
so yeah, izzy sucks at cooking, and who knows if she'll ever get better at it, but every time i see a joke cracked about her terrible spaghetti, i can't help but feel like the serious side of this all should have it's moment to be addressed as well. because it's always more than just food.
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