I recently started to practice chanting meditation — it’s still a pretty private thing for me (it’s hard, as an incredulous westerner, I think, to not feel like an ass when repeatedly droning in Sanskrit) but I have found it remarkably calming and helpful. Wonder sometimes how I got along without it.
The answer of course is that I used to get the same recharge from cooking, and still sometimes get a flicker of my former experience. In life Before Children, when pre-dinner was a time of quiet shifting into domesticity, the act of arranging ingredients, methodically chopping, stirring, and tasting was a real Zen and the Art of Cooking kind of thing for me. I would zone out (safely) while chopping, with complete awareness of my fingers and the knife and the food, able to chop faster and more accurately for my lack of characteristically tight control. Humming or singing along with something, gently sweeping the blade down and through — it’s no wonder that I was simply relaxed by the time dinner was ready.
I have yet to figure out how to resurrect those feelings in the midst of kid chaos. Perhaps when they’re a bit older, and I can stop yelling, “PUT THAT DOWN!” and “OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OKAY?!” Amelia is a major cook in the making — she helped me with omelets this morning, and stirred a bunch of jambalaya last night. And the boys may be, too. But right now, that formerly calm period of preparation is out of reach. Ommmmmm….
The other thing about cooking is that it’s the closest thing I can imagine to real alchemy. The combination of elements that are eh on their own, but when combined in certain ways become something extraordinary. Lemon cake comes to mind. Cherries and the right cheese. Well-made risotto. Or the bizarre mash of ingredients that make up the so-called “Brazilian burger” I had a few weeks ago. Sometimes it is delightfully impossible to deconstruct a flavor in its entirety — and I love that feeling of wonder, not knowing what the hell was combined to make something that tastes like that. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s some kind of magic.
And with that said, I’ll take my well-stocked stomach back into work mode, with my Buddhist prayer beads on my wrist, and my mind on my next meal.
