Cook For The Calm
“The kitchen is the alchemy of love.”
–Guy de Maupassant–
We are all going through uncertain and unprecedented times and that’s given a lot of us this unsettling feeling. But remember, you’re not alone. So while we can’t predict for how long we’ll be in this situation, we can certainly look after our mental well-being. How? By keeping ourselves and our brain healthy, happy and occupied. Do things that you love and find happiness in.
Sharing with y’all a lil’ taste of my therapy and how I find my calm in the art called – Cooking 🙂
Cooking has always been close to my heart and I often joke to my husband if I should open like a highway style Dhaba or a cafe or just a food truck (someday maybe, someday I shall)… I love cooking food for my friends and family. To me, it’s the best form of expression and incredibly rewarding as an experience. Cooking does not just give me satisfaction, but validation too, although I cook mostly for the former 😉
It’s a great stress reliever, nourishes our psychological well-being, and there’s tremendous learning attached to it, here’s how:
It’s Art From The Heart
Cooking is a combination of art, planning, knowledge, techniques, and encourages your creative fluids like nothing else. You don’t just plan for the groceries, but while at it, every step is planned and set in your head. At the same time, it’s about following your heart more than a recipe.
“A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.” -Thomas Keller
Sense It Right
It aids our sensory nervous system like none other. It’s one of those activities that involve all the senses. All our 5 senses remain active throughout the whole process, right until the end. Sight, hearing, touch, and ofcourse, smell and taste – all set in motion during this labour.
The cycle repeats itself when we eat.
It’s All About Concentration & Patience
Because it boosts your power to concentrate. With cooking, it’s like meditation, you gotta focus on every task at hand, and patiently. A fine change in the ingredient, a change in the order of the ingredient, or in the proportion of it, makes all the difference. Good taste comes with a patience test too! There, one more benefit 👈
Creative Way To Deal With Problems
The process allows you to make mistakes, it makes you try all permutations and combinations to fix your dish, thus, improving your problem-solving skills too.
Concoction of Cuisines
There’s so much room for creativity, innovation, variation, and you don’t need a client’s approval for this! Make anything you like, cook everything your heart (and tummy) craves for. It’s like experiencing a potpourri of cultures.
On that note, I am grateful for this lockdown, it has allowed me so much more time to experiment in the kitchen. This situation has kind of brought out the masterchefs in a lot of us. From Burger to Gathiya nu shaak, from Caesar’s Salad to Romali Roti, from Pasta to Pani Puri, from Samosas to Momos, I made it all, so, FOMO no more (yeah, did that on purpose) 🙃
Food For Thought:
Putting down some beautiful insights I read in an article –
According to a study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, tasks like cooking made people feel more enthusiastic about things the next day. “Cooking is an innately rewarding experience,” says Zipora. “You feel a strong sense of accomplishment when you’ve prepared something satisfying, and that confidence will surge and spread into other areas of your life.”
So, don’t let the pressure whistle out on you, find what calms you down and cook your recipe to therapy! 😇
By Shivani Mehta,
Group Account Manager, SoCheers