Hi Everyone,
When you regularly engage in an activity, such as cooking, there are moments when the passion is removed from what you are doing. You assemble the ingredients and put them together in a perfunctory manner. You know the quantity of each ingredient required for the dish, the order in which they are to be put together and how long it should be cooked. If it is a dish with which you are very familiar, then, as we say, you can make it blindfolded, or, with one hand behind your back. While it is not always possible to slow down long enough to really engage with the ingredients, the task at hand, or to contemplate where our mind takes us, it is worthwhile to make the effort to slow down and really engage, as often as we can.
The other day I was watching a chef series on Netflix and became enraptured by an episode with the chef featured talking about the song of fire in his grandmother’s kitchen as he simultaneously placed two large baigan/boulanger/eggplant on a grate over a crackling wood fire. He stood back and stared at the fire as the flames licked and charred the eggplant. For a moment, it seemed as if he was transported back to his grandmother’s kitchen. The camera seemed to intrude on a private moment of reflection. It was a powerful scene and there would be many more throughout the episode. I am a journalist so I know and understand the