Food, What a Pleasure + A Meditation

I love food.

farmer's market fare

I also love fabric, flower gardens, sunsets and brilliant paintings – mostly abstract and ethnic.  There’s just something about the colors, textures, and boldness that draw me in.

And when scents and flavors are part of the equation, I’m just sensorily overcome.

Sometimes I cook merely to eat.  Other times, it’s about much more than simply sating hunger.  It’s about the ingredients, the process of combining them (like when I used my hands to mix meatloaf ingredients last week), the sensations of cooking, and the pleasure of eating – especially with friends.

The way basmati rice smells different from jasmine.

The way pungent essential oils spit into the air when you peel an orange.

How honey from Ghana is thick, smoky and dark, while the sunflower honey of Germany is blonde, delicate, and creamy.

The popping sound a ripe garbanzo bean pod makes when I squeeze it.

The way a riot of colors on our plate seems more a work of art than a meal.

And how that meal makes me feel.

 When you take your time and enjoy the process, nurturing this relationship between the food you prepare and eat and the way your senses respond, food becomes a pleasurable experience like no other.

Meditation on a Meal

Next time you cook or sit down to a meal,try this sensory exercise – a meditation on your meal:

  • Sit down to eat your meal and avoid doing anything else but eating.
  • Appraise your food – really look at it…notice the colors, textures, the art of your food.
  • Inhale the scents of your food. The rich, the pungent, the delicate and bold.
  • Chew slowly, appreciatively.  Let the food slide over your tongue, engaging your taste buds – sweet, salty, bitter, sour.  See what distinct flavors you notice and how they combine.
  • Pay attention to the sounds.  The crispness of snap pea, the satisfying crunch of an apple.  How about the sounds around you?  Dishes clanking, conversation, background music, etc.
  • Feel how the meal makes you feel – physically and emotionally.  What do you sense deep down in your belly, your soul?  Heat, joy, delight, a tingle?

Each time you slow down to take pleasure in a meal, your senses will come alive.