Thirteen reasons why cooking can make you happier

 I've always been fond of cooking. But as in many relations, there have been ups and downs. Times of intense activity, and times of pure neglect. When I was a young girl, before studying in England, I didn't care too much about health, fitness, long culinary preparations. While being a student in England, I totally gave in. I snacked on Twix and melted cheese, not caring about all the other food available, never cooking. I occasionally tasted local dishes, but on a daily basis, I was a barbarian! I don't regret it. It was part of my youth, a time of freedom and carelessness. I came back to France with ten more kilos. I didn't wear the same size of clothes, my cheeks were chubby, I was happy. When I met my future husband, I started eating too much, somehow competing with his much larger appetite and stomach. And I put on weight again.
Yet I have always loved cooking and caring about food. My mom offered me a book when I was eight: la cuisine des petites filles. And I passionately cooked each and every recipe, including the slightly tricky ones. I was so grateful for this precious present! It was colourful, surprising, gratifying.
I have always loved cooking for people too. I believe that this part of my life spent alone in my own flat, as a senior student, led me to less cooking because there wasn't someone to share food with, most of the time.
I have always loved arranging dishes, making them look pretty. And I have always been a lover of good things, good food included! ;)
Several moments in my life enhanced and developed my taste for food and its cooking correlate. Becoming a mom was the most important. It started with these little carrot purees I started making for my teeny tiny babe. And it kept developing as my baby kept growing, and as my family increased in number.

Having a family made it different. Cooking reached a higher level. I became more aware of the impact of food on health. When I was on parental leave, it reached a higher level still. For the first time in my life I had several babies to take care of, and time to cook real meals. I also had a much tighter budget. So cooking from scratch became a must. And I was stunned each day to see how happy it made me!

Now the babes are growing, I am back to work, my husband still has a strong appetite, and I have acquired enough experience to feed my whole family with care, with a reasonable budget, fresh products, abundantly but reasonably, while always keeping in mind the importance of health and pleasure that, I think, are inherent to cooking.
I'm happy to share here thirteen reasons why cooking has changed my life for the better.

1) Cooking is sharing.
My kids know how to cook. My younger ones love peeling veggies and spending time in the kitchen with me, throwing things in boiling water, cutting, pouring, washing...

2) Cooking is fun.
Manipulating textures, dealing with colours, seeing food transform, making combinations. It's a bit of science class mixed with playing house! Not to forget the immense pleasure of tasting the result of all these makings and experiments! Cooking favours creativity and washes stress away.

3) Cooking means intention. It means taking care of oneself and others. In a medical sort of way. In a mommy's sort of way. In a gardener's sort of way. It makes me happier. It means doing something with intention, and this might not be far from what Sachi wrote about: honmono.

4) Cooking preserves health.
I've enjoyed reading The hungry planet. The more you cook, the more you realize the impact on your health, and on your planet's health. Since I started cooking from scratch and making a real effort to keep processed food at bay, we gradually stopped going to the doctor. After a few years, we realized this stunning reality: we are rarely sick, and recover very quickly from colds. We are more energetic, we pratice more sports than before...So much time and money saved since we stopped being sick every now and then, especially in winter time. This is really worth the effort.

5) Cooking enlightens.
I have learned so much, not only about the actual process of cooking, but about the way food is produced. From agriculture to economy, from philosophy to geography, food partakes to so many different fields of interest. Add to this all the cooking associates, like oenology, wine tasting, but also chemistry. I have a whole collection of cooking books that I keep jealously on a shelf in my living-room.

6) Cooking means playing an active role in economy, through the careful choice of what you buy. It means you can have more control on what you eat. It can even mean you refuse to eat food that comes from animals that were ill-treated. You can stop eating vegetables and fruits soaked with pesticides. Cooking more consciously, I eventually bought my own chickens and extended my vegetable patch.

7) Cooking is educating: myself, my kids, my husband. It means discovering and enjoying new flavours, it involves the curiosity of tasting food from other countries. Discovering rare vegetables, exotic fruits, new dishes. Being respectful of our bodies, our environment.

8) Cooking develops organizational skills: planning, choosing recipes, adapting them to the number of guests and to the time of the year (a nice warm soup in winter, a sweet fruit sorbet in summer, veggies of the season...). Calculating amounts, quantities, proportions, distributing, freezing, preserving. It has a snowball effect. The more you cook, the more efficient you become.

9) Cooking leads to better eating. And this involves not only the amount of vitamins you will absorb, but also the quiet time you will spend together sitting at the table, sharing jokes and anecdotes, anticipating the pleasure of eating a meal prepared with love. If you cook, you might eventually ditch the overload of industrial, processed food that has become part of our daily lifestyle. You might slow down and take time to enjoy the process of giving food to your body. You might relax and feel gratified and grateful.

10) Cooking is love. It shows love. It shares love. It is family. It is friends gathered together.

11) Cooking is celebrating. It means Christmas. Thanksgiving (an event we don't have here, but I am slowly integrating it in my family's culture). Birthdays...

12) Cooking helps you lose weight (or keep your weight stable).
I once read this book and was struck by how true this might well be: traditional French cuisine may actually lead not to overweight, but to a stable, healthy silhouette. Though this is gradually losing ground in France, our traditional way of eating implies several courses, smaller portions, a little bit of everything: entrée, main and side dish, cheese, dessert...A meal cooked from scratch, with some variety, will lead you to eat more of everything and less of one thing. Hence a healthier lifestyle, a safer check on vitamins. I am a fan of French cook Cyril Lignac, because I think he's unpretentious, reasonable in his advice, and wise in his approach. Like him, I think young people shouldn't be forbidden to have a quick snack, but should be educated and slowly guided toward fresh, home-made food.

13) Cooking is beauty. Shall I say more? It is beauty on the outside. It is beauty on the inside. Sometimes both, sometimes not. How does it matter? There is the beauty of all the work involved in the preparation. There is the beauty of showing it, like a declaration. And sharing it.

On taking decisions... and making choices

So recently, I took up a new course on Coursera.
I haven't spoken about Coursera yet. But this web place is absolutely awesome.
If you like to learn and if you are curious, be sure to check it. No, I am not sponsored. They don't know me, but I have tested them.
I have taken Coursera courses already, on gastronomy, the history of Internet, etc. And four weeks ago, I signed up for a C++ course. For those who might not be fond of computing, it's a programming language.
You see, I am an 'artist' deep in my soul. I dream, I often do things out of intuition and feeling. I even went through a huge chunck of my studies with this 'method'. Feeling. Intuition. This is how I live, work, cook, craft. Not that I don't like to think and ponder (I do that all the time, probably way too much!), but I often end up acting like I breathe, without a predetermined plan. I'm also, even if that's close to caricature, much of the literary type, and I suck at anything that's related with mathematics.
So I thought this type of course would boost my neurons; yes, it would stimulate my tired neuronal connexions! :-)  And of course, I am much of a geek too, so I'd have fun and muscle my brain at the same time...
Turned out I indeed had a blast. And spent hours...at night, and worse for a family girl like me, during daytime too. I racked my brains, I submitted dozens of papers, did tons of exercises, caught myself doing the assignments over again.
I raced on to respect deadlines, and ended up consuming my whole saturday afternoon..so that in the evening there was no dinner, and the house was in a complete mess!
I had originally taken a decision that was good for me, but the good for me turned out to be outrageously bad for the rest of the family.
With food to buy, sleep to catch up with, kids to take care of, meals to plan and a job that demands lots of preparation, I ended up today shifting from that good decision to a more wholesome choice.
I used what was left of my weekend to cook a real dinner, fly a kite with my kids and drink tea with my daughters in their doll's tea set. Oh yes, I did the washing up too.
Ten years ago, I'd  have spent weeks on this course. Drinking coffee. Talking passionately for hours. Burning the midnight oil. Now I have a different life. Now my decisions affect not only me, but my dear ones. My choices are my responsibility.
I ended the day happier and at peace. But before that, I felt the dark clouds of frustration and bitter disappointment gather round me.
Giving up on this fun thing for me was hard. Finding appropriate leisure for me is not that common: not enough money. Not enough logistic support. And time is not really expandable, is it?
But this is what life is about. Moving on.
Moving along with our life and our choices, making the best of what we have.
And surrendering gracefully whenever necessary, in order to be able to evolve and move to the next step.
Finding contentment in the little things. They always matter. They are always here.
I am moving to the next step, accordingly. I pass on, move, and smile.
Today my fun was made of precious moments spent laughing with my kids. Picking fresh eggs in our recently built chicken coop. And rejoicing in the simplicity of it.

Heaven on Earth

I really wanted to share some thoughts about this book, Heaven on Earth, A Handbook for Parents of Young Children, by Sharifa Oppenheimer.
I believe this can be an interesting read even for people whose children are grown-ups or people who don't have children, because the writer shares her vision of Life, a vision that allows peacefulness, gentleness, harmony with the world around. A vision that insists on the importance of rhythms, on the creativity that lies in each of us, on the communication we should have with Nature. Of course for people who have young children, I believe it is a mine, a treasure trove brimming with ideas and tips and constructive advice.
I've been reading this book passionately, underlining passages, writing notes, saying 'ah yes', 'that's right', 'this is true' and so on!
For one thing, Sharifa reminds us that bringing up children relies on ourselves. If we want our children to be more relaxed, creative, healthy, we need to listen to our own rhythms, to resort to our own creativity. I could not agree more with what she writes about simplifying, one of my key hobbies! :) As she points out, 'the less "stuff" we have to deal with, the more time we have to be at ease'. I do love chapter 9 too, entitled 'Creating your Family Culture'. I guess that's something that started the day I knew I was pregnant for the first time. Still, this is something that takes time and involves knowing oneself. Sharifa Oppenheimer writes: 'The quality of our family culture pivots entirely upon the awareness we bring to it.  Let us bring as much consciousness to this process as we can'. Yes, that is indeed something I want to dig into, something I want to expand and let bloom...
Well there are so many passages I couldn't agree more with! I've been so happy to read about the writer's opinion concerning the excessive amount of time spent watching TV...about the importance of the senses and movement for children...about the necessity to stop hurrying!
Reading this book has been like meeting a true friend. Knowing it is there on my shelf is indeed like having a friend nearby whose advice is gentle and safe. And it also feels good to read so many things I've had in mind, and to see that I'm not the only one out there thinking along those lines!

Val