This guy always comes to mind when we think about living life more
slowly.
When I think about the slowest creature around, I think about the turtle. He really can’t help, but to stop and smell the roses, because his top speed is slow. I’ve been reading a book about living life with intention and slowing down and how that’s a very difficult concept here in our American culture. The book is, Notes from a Blue Bike, by Tsh Oxenreider.
There are different sections, but the one that has really spoken to me is the one about food and mealtimes. In other cultures, meal times are special and to be savored. They plan on it taking a fairly long time to prepare from scratch and they plan on taking a fairly long time to enjoy their meals as well. Cooking is an art form of sorts and the table is where the family comes together and soaks up the art and the company.
I’m fascinated by this concept because mealtime for my family has always been on the daily checklist of things to do. We usually eat a home cooked meal every night and we eat as a family, but nobody is ever really excited about meal time. We usually serve the same things week after week. Part of the reason is my children are incredibly picky, but part is mere convenience.
I just had a similar conversation with a friend of mine and she said they do the same at her house. We have thousands of recipes at our fingertips with our friend the internet, but we stick with the familiar, with the easy. Why do we do that?
Maybe it’s because we are so busy. Trying new recipes means new ingredients and wandering up and down the grocery aisles in search of them takes time. We never have enough time.
This author was also really big on buying locally from farmer’s markets and eating what is in season. I’ll have to admit I kind of like eating strawberries year round, but she has a point when she asks how fresh they can be in December. Where did they come from and how long ago were they picked?
Food is a gift from God. Genesis tells us that God made trees that produced, “delicious fruit.” If we are mindlessly shoveling it in and not tasting and savoring, maybe we are doing our Creator a disservice. If it comes from a bag or a box or as my mama says, “has more than four ingredients,” how nutritious is it? How good is it?
By good, I don’t mean like Oreos taste good, but I mean good tasting and good for you. Oxenreider argues that we are biologically made to eat whole food and we should strive to. Maybe she’s right.
Think about it, your grandmother didn’t serve you anything from a box. As a society we have convinced ourselves that we don’t have much time to spend in the kitchen, yet our kitchens are larger than any point in history. Why is that? If we have several hours a day to spend on Facebook and watching television, perhaps we could spend more time in the kitchen.
Our waist lines may thank us and our doctors may see less of us. We may discover that cooking as God intended is an art form all its own. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂