Have you ever had a meal you have successfully made dozens of times come out sub-par? If you are like me, you have. And if the cause is the same as mine, you were probably angry, sad, tired, distracted, or just not interested in cooking that day. I have learned the hard way (picture several barely edible meals) that I should not step into the kitchen to do anything other than microwave leftovers if I am not ready to put love, care and attention into the food I am cooking.
My meals may not convey emotions the same way as Tita’s in Laura Esquivel’s Como Aqua Para Chocolate, but you can definitely taste the absence of love when my heart is not in the cooking process.
Most days, I enjoy cooking. The majority of the time, it is a joy for me to chop vegetables, mix up sauces, simmer soups, and stir baked goods. But sometimes, I have a bad day, I didn’t get enough sleep the night before, or my mind is elsewhere. And on those days, I have learned that everyone is much happier if I suggest leftovers, fend-for-yourself, or going out to eat. I don’t push myself to cook when I am not interested in doing so (gifting myself compassion), Adam doesn’t have to clean up the kitchen (in our house, the cook doesn’t clean), and no one has to eat a bland, burnt, underseasoned meal. I have learned over the years that if Adam asks if it is safe for me to be cooking, it probably means it isn’t!
There are times though, where my mind is scattered, I just got off a difficult phone call, or my errand running took longer than expected and I need to rush straight to the kitchen to make dinner. Those are the days when I need a little help getting in the right mindset to cook with love (for you this might be once in a while, or every day).
Here are a few things which work for me to bring an extra dose of love to my food:
I channel my mother’s love for her family into my cooking.
Some of Adam’s favorite meals I make are the ones I cook from my childhood memories. The smells, the tastes, the finished meal, it all feels like I am standing in the kitchen with my mom surrounded by her love. Do you have a dish or meal you connect to happy and loving childhood memories? If you never learned to cook the dish and the original cook if no longer around to ask, check Pinterest – I am amazed at the recipes I find there help recreate meals I have loved.
My great-grandmother’s silverware
I connect back through generations of my family through physical items.
You may notice that I always stir my baked goods with a fork. In part, I find a fork does a better job than a spoon at breaking up clumps of flour and sugar as well as holding strong against a stiff dough. But it is also about the particular forks I use. Years ago, my mother gifted me with my great-grandmother’s silverware. These are the forks I remember eating off of as a child, and the forks my mother used as a child visiting her grandmother. Generations have shared meals (both edible and less than – the great-grandmother this silverware belonged to was a notoriously bad cook) and love (even the stories of my great-grandmother’s bad cooking are told with affection) using the very same forks I stir my dough with. Do you have a spoon, cookie cutter, cast iron pan, or something else that will connect you with a history of family preparing meals and sharing them with love?
I listen to a podcast or music which brings a smile to my face.
It is important not to choose something too distracting – the goal is to help lift your spirits, not pull your attention away from the cooking (you don’t want to be so wrapped up in the latest episode of Serial that you burn your meal). By listening to upbeat music (especially something I want to sing along to), or a podcast which makes me laugh or smile, I am frequently able to shake a bad mood and emerge from the kitchen with both a delicious meal and a sunnier disposition than I walked in with. Growing up, my mother was frequently distracted and rarely enjoyed the process of cooking (although she is a great cook now). However, I remember my mother singing and dancing around the kitchen with a wooden spoon in her hand while she cooked – I like to think that bringing the cheerfulness into the cooking process through music was her way of bringing her love to something she would rather not be doing. Do you have a “happy” playlist? Or a podcast you know always brings a smile to your face?
I try to cook with ingredients which were grown with love.
I give a little bit of extra care to preparing vegetables I grow myself, those gifted to me by a neighbor from their garden, or which I select at a farmer’s market after meeting the farmer who grew them. Knowing the person who poured love into those vegetables from the time they were seeds until they landed in my kitchen gives me even more incentive to continue to shower love on them as I cook. Can you learn more about where your ingredients come from? If you don’t have access to the actual grower, you can read the bios on local producers in the produce section of the grocery store. And even if you are just reading the side of the pasta box while waiting for the water to boil, it will help connect you to the care that was put into the ingredients before they reached you.
We all have responsibilities in our lives which don’t go away just because we are having a bad day. And for many people, ensuring you and your family are fed is one of those responsibilities. So if you find yourself dragging your feet as you head to the kitchen to prepare a meal, stop for just a second.
Take a deep breath, turn your focus inward and ask yourself where the resistance is coming from. Does it have to do with the cooking itself? Or are there other things showing up in your life that are drowning out any excitement to cook? If it is about the cooking itself, is there an acceptable alternative to cooking? This is where you ask yourself what advice you would give your best friend if she were in your shoes – remember that it is incredibly important to give yourself the same gift of compassion you would extend to others. If however, you feel a little spark of joy at the idea of cooking, but it is buried and unable to catch fire, look at the list above. How can you bring more love into the kitchen today? If the spark is there, it might just take a little fanning the flames to ignite the spark and get the fire started!
Cheers to all the delicious meals you prepare with love!
