Reader (and fellow blogger) Christine Simiriglia of Organize More, Stress Less left a comment on last week’s green products post that really caught my attention:
…Eat fresh, whole foods with fewer ingredients. Meal preparation has gone from being an enjoyable activity to a necessary evil in our super busy work days. We now eat frozen, processed or prepared foods for most of our weekday meals. Along with the food we get all of the preservatives, added colors, artificial flavors, excessive sodium, and higher costs that go with the convenience of a six minute dinner from the microwave.
Instead, try buying fresh fruits and vegetables and have them washed and available to grab whenever hunger strikes. Prepare whole grains and beans like brown rice, barley or split peas in larger batches on the weekend, then refrigerate, and heat as needed during the week. You’ll eat healthier while shrinking your grocery bill and your waistline.
Christine’s idea that meal prep, in it’s natural state is an enjoyable activity jumped out at me. Huh. Why hasn’t that occurred to me before? [Head smack.]
Getting Friendly with Your Kitchen
So I set out with my next meal to return some of the spice to the cooking process. To enjoy the experience of preparing a meal, I tried to turn the evening from a series of tasks into… well… a full-on experience. That meant paying attention to the details: the smells, the sounds, the feels, and especially the sounds. (I love a good sizzle…)
I treated the meal prep like the event itself, not the lead-up to the event of dinner. I’m beginning to think that may be one of the biggest hurdles to jump. If we assume that the meal is the event, then it certainly doesn’t make sense to spend an hour preparing for 15 minutes of eating. But if we consider the entire time spent eating and preparing food as the important part, it gets easier to unwind, relax, and enjoy the process.
What it felt like at the end was that I’d spent the evening, quite happily, trying to seduce my kitchen. Before your mind heads straight for the gutter, consider some of my favorite parts of the kitchen experiment:
Fix the Lighting
If the adage that no one looks good in flourescent light is true, then it probably holds true for food as well. I kept the flourescents off and cooked by (safely bright) lamplight and the glow of the stove light. It was amazing how just changing the lighting altered my mood. The “ugh, work” vibe faded into the background to be replaced with excitement and anticipation. Yay!
Set the Tracks
While watching syndicated repeats of Two and a Half Men may help your mind go numb after a long day, it’s not an ingredient of a memorable evening. I pulled out my “Cooking Jams” CD from way back and had a blast shaking my booty in the kitchen. (Think old school R&B and guilty-pleasure pop. Sweet.) Again, the mood changed. I wasn’t trying to multi-task and watch TV, which meant that cooking wasn’t in the way, it was the way. Just be careful with the chopping, folks!
Ply the Participants with Alcohol
A glass of wine in my hand provides instant atmosphere. Whatever your poison is, whether it’s OJ or a Sam Adams, enjoy it while you cook, not after you cook. Plus, it’s a sneaky way to woo others into the kitchen to be your sous chef.
Plan Ahead… But Improvise as Needed
Cooking sucks when you don’t have the ingredients, recipes, or dishes that you need. So plan ahead to make sure you’ve got the components you need so that you can just relax. On the other hand, though, be ready for surprises. Cooking for me never goes according to plan. I’m slowly learning not to freak out when I burn the potatoes or screw the pooch in any of a variety of ways. There’s no point in stressing. The worst case scenario is cheese omelets or pizza delivery. Not a crisis.
Put Your Best Face Forward
Just like in a good seduction, looks matter. And I’m not talking about me. (Flannel pants and my college sweatshirt are my comfy cooking gear.) I had a hell of a time making the plate itself look good when the meal was ready. It added to the feeling that I was trying to rush through meal prep since it was so awful. It was something worth taking the time to enjoy.
In the end, I really didn’t have to change much except for my attitude. I stopped the looped track in my head that shouted, “Get this over with! You have better things to do! Like watching Dancing with the Stars!” Meal prep wasn’t a chore to rush through before it wasted more of my precious time. It was a chance to have some quiet time to myself, some conversation with my husband, and enjoy my home. And while I won’t put on such an elaborate show every night (at least not for awhile), I am psyched to change a lot of my cooking habits.
And One More Thing
On reflecting on the evening, there was one more thing I loved. The enjoyable evening had absolutely nothing to do with how expensive my kitchen was (or wasn’t, in my case). Granite countertops wouldn’t have made the process any more fun, pricey appliances wouldn’t have made a difference, and none of that stuff really even came into the equation. Cooking is equal opportunity fun.
Okay, so I took Christine’s great advice on a bit of a tangent. But that’s what great advice is about: finding what works for you and making it work hard. So thanks, Christine. And I’ll think about replacing the linguica breakfast burritos with something non-artery clogging next time…
And because you made it to the end of this post, a slice of fresh pumpkin pie, from my kitchen to yours:
