Thank you for all the positive feedback about 3191. It feels like just the
right thing for me to be doing right now, although I have to say to mav, stop reading my
mind.
I'm also really loving reading the new year's posts out in blogland.
Everyone sounds so full of possibility. Isn't that a great feeling? I'm
not much for resolutions, but I do love feeling like I'm getting a fresh
start and that's how I feel now. We had a lot of changes in our lives
last year, and I spent a lot of the time feeling overwhelmed and pulled
in many directions. I found it really hard to enjoy any one thing I was
doing without worrying about what was left undone. I began to rush
through things that I had previously savored and enjoyed. The act of
cooking and eating was one of them.
I've always been a fan of the slow food
movement. It's really, for the most part, how I was raised and how I
approached food and eating once I went off to college and began cooking
for myself (maybe not always eating locally, but the care and intent of
the preparation of meals and the rejection of processed foods, yes).
However, parenting, living on a tight budget and balancing a busy life
have all done their part to erode my reverence for a good meal.
Nothing like cooking for an unappreciative audience to make the kitchen
an inhospitable place.
I'm hoping that in the new year that I'll be slowing things down in
the kitchen and at the market. I was motivated to make a change after
reading The
Omnivore's Dilemma and by the restricted diet we're trying with
Miles (due to some minor health problems), but also by the desire that
the preparation of food be, once again, an enjoyable experience.
I am also proposing a slow life movement, one where I
approach things with intent and purposefulness and joy in mind rather
than efficiency or other's expectations. A life with more
walking and less driving, more lingering and less hurrying, more time
outside and less in front of a screen, more doing and less worrying
about what needs to be done. Taking a break from this blog is a part of
my slow life movement, but, I imagine, coming back to it might be part
of it too.
I'll be back to remind you about the auction. I'll be
getting up at 5:00 am tomorrow to help it go live.
Be well!
