12% of people globally don’t feel they have the right to ask for privacy at home, and 26% admit to busying themselves with activities to show they’re unavailable to others. So here we zoom in on mindful cooking, with ideas for de-stressing your cooking environment from British vegetarian cook, Anna Jones.
The research for our Life at Home Report 2019 showed that privacy is a complicated ask for most, and that people rely on signals – whether consciousious or subconscious – to show those they live with that they need time alone. In fact, 26% admit to busying themselves with activities to show that they’re unavailable to others.
In this vein, we’re thinking about our post ’Four simple steps to building private moments into your day’, which suggested that when we simply focus on the (often repetitive) rhythm of chores such as folding laundry or cooking, the activity offer us a sense of restfulness for the privacy it gives us.
Harry Ritter, MD, the founder and CEO of Alma, a co-working space for therapists, says: “You can use the act of cooking as another opportunity to create space for yourself—no culinary degree required. it doesn’t really matter if you practice therapeutic cooking in the morning or at night, just as long as you aren’t rushed in a way that makes cooking feel like a chore.”
And to this end, we think making your workspace functional and easy to navigate is key. To do this, we follow the list Anna Jones opened her second cookbook, ’A Modern Way to Cook’ (2015) with, for a practise she calls ’quick, calm cooking.’
Anna’s tips for quick, calm cooking
01. Clear enough space to cook in
Like most people’s, Anna’s kitchen counters get cluttered, but she clears an area big enough to cook comfortably in.
02. Have the basic equipment
This one really speeds things up. The basic basics are fine, but invest in a food processor if you’re a very slow chopper; if things are consistently burning or sticking, it’s time to invest in new pans.
03. Place a mixing bowl on the work surface
With this in place for peelings and trimmings, you’ll avoid having to run back and forth to the bin. You’ll also ensure the area you’re working in is close to the stove, so you can do a few jobs at once.
04. Read the recipe through
Familiarise yourself with the details from top to bottom before you start doing anything. You need to know what happens when, as well as how things should be chopped and cooked.
05. Get all your ingredients together by your chopping board
This way, you have everything to hand before you start chopping. It’s about simplifying the process and so often when Anna asks people what went wrong, they say they burnt the onions while digging around in a cupboard for the coriander seeds.
06. When you come to gathering, make it easy for yourself
You don’t want to be spending half an hour spent clearing out the spice shelf. Anna keeps all her spices in little labelled glass jars by the cooker, for example. If you do a lot of baking, put big markered masking tape labels on all the different flours to show their type/name, so you can grab each one in an instant.