Joy’s cooking and baking function as symbols of her love. For the protagonist, preparing food is both a genuine expression of her attentive, generous care and a way to hide from the difficult but necessary work of engaging with her and her loved ones’ painful emotions. Joy herself is aware of her pattern of substituting food for emotional honesty: “I’m not very good at distilling everything I think and feel into a sentence. I express my love for people in other ways. Their favorite sweet treat fresh from the oven” (226). From the red velvet cupcakes she uses to cheer up Finn after he’s bullied by his peers to the paella and moussaka she prepares to tempt Hazel’s waning appetite, she initially relies upon food to express her feelings. This pattern is steeped in the traditional, domestic roles Joy was expected to perform during her childhood and marriage. Decades after the deaths of her parents and husband, she still feels safest expressing her care through these palatable outlets rather than through potentially messy, uncomfortable conversations about emotions. Joy’s cooking and baking also reveal how she initially fails to extend her lovingkindness to herself. She cuts her own grocery budget to prepare meals for Hazel, preparing delicacies for her friend while she subsists on “homegrown fare along with canned beans, pasta, and rice” (5). By highlighting the hidden cost of Joy’s thoughtful deeds, Brammer underscores the novel’s message that restrictive definitions of what makes someone a “good person” are often harmful.

In a key component of her personal growth, Joy gains the self-knowledge and courage to use food to express her love in addition to words, not instead of them. When she goes to Elizabeth’s apartment to apologize for the ways that her toxic positivity has harmed her daughter, she brings along a homemade omelet that she sets aside because she recognizes the conversation with her daughter takes priority. This scene marks a transition, showing how the protagonist no longer hides behind her cooking and baking. She still follows the lifelong pattern of making food to express her care, but she no longer shies away from difficult subjects. During the epilogue, Joy bakes one of Hazel’s favorite desserts, sticky date pudding, for the dinner in her late friend’s honor and joins her biological and chosen family members in enjoying the sweet and sharing memories. This scene emphasizes that Joy has learned to figuratively make room for herself at the table and discovered that confronting the negative aspects of life makes her relationships with her loved ones stronger. By the end of the novel, Joy possesses a healthier self-love and is more comfortable voicing her true feelings for others, and the author uses food to illustrate these shifts.