11/15/2023 0 Comments Cocking a crossbow by hand![]() ![]() Now, I'm not saying that every cooking experience needs to be spiritual or sensual. She would run her fingers along the pointed nubs of the beans - almost like someone would press prayer beads between their fingertips - and stare at the black-eyed Susans coming up in her backyard. ![]() You feel part of something larger."Ĭsikszentmihalyi's research makes me think of my grandmother, who, before she passed, likened snapping green beans to a form of meditation. "You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. "When we are involved in, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life," Csikszentmihalyi said during a TED talk in 2004. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi originated the term, which he uses to describe the phenomenon when someone becomes so absorbed within a creative activity that their reality outside of it is "temporarily suspended." This is because our nervous system is only capable of processing a finite amount of information at a time. Most responded with some variation of "When I really get into cooking with my hands, my brain feels different." Scientists have actually developed a word for this: flow. However, when asked why, the majority of the cooks responded with a similar sentiment. Weeknight cooking sometimes can feel like frenetic treading against the tide of culinary burnout, with unitaskers and countertop gadgets as our buoys. I asked her if she used kitchen gadgets more or less given her role. "It's less time than it takes to watch an episode of 'Friends,'" she joked over the phone. She had just finished a project for an electric multi-cooker company that centered on 15-minute recipes. My late-night carbonara making had inspired me to call Margaret, a friend of mine who ghostwrites recipes and cooking pamphlets for appliance brands. Need to drain the excess liquid from a can of tuna? Consider buying a tuna can-shaped " tuna press." Weeknight cooking sometimes can feel like frenetic treading against the tide of culinary burnout, with unitaskers and countertop gadgets as our buoys.īut both culinary anecdotes and science point to another way: embracing the forgotten art of cooking with one's hands. Want to remove the leaves from a head of tender parsley? Try a $10.97 herb stripper. These days, a gadget exists to expedite nearly every step of the cooking process. It's an argument that has been made for decades, from the original frozen dinner makers ("I'm late, but dinner won't be," said a retro Swanson ad) to Robert Wang, the inventor who made it his mission to "put Instant Pot in every kitchen." Such has been the case since mid-century appliance advertisements promised housewives they could "make kitchens brighter, housework lighter," as a 1953 Coolerator spread heralded. In our fast-paced, technology-driven world, the act of preparing a meal is often more about sprinting to the finish line than enjoying the process of getting there. It was such a small thing, but as I did so, I found myself thinking, "Why don't I do this more often?" To be clear, I wasn't specifically referring to separating eggs, but rather the process of actually cooking with my hands. Each time, I was freshly struck by the delicate weight of the golden orb in my palm. I repeated this with three more eggs, intentionally sifting the white from the yolk with my own two hands. I swaddled the yolk in the fold of my hand, allowing the white to slip through my fingers, before passing it to my other. ![]() Such was the case the night I was making carbonara when I clumsily shattered half a shell and had to act quickly so that the yolk destined to become velvety, glossy sauce didn't escape down the kitchen drain. That said, unlike Emeril, occasionally I get in a bad crack. ![]()
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