Food For Thought: Winter, Week 4
For our fourth writing prompt, we feast on presence!
In week four of our seasonal food writing prompts, we are all quite busy, so I offer a simple exercise to check in and ground.
As I spend a relatively quiet Christmas day, I am thinking about my paternal grandfather, who came from a big Italian family in New Orleans. Celebrations were loud and raucous. All the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and godmothers helped to cook. They scoured washtubs and placed them atop charcoal braziers to serve pasta crowded with meatballs and Italian sausages. Sicilian mixed salad was overflowing in another tub. The next tub was filled with ice and and fresh oysters. The uncles helped shuck, garnishing them with a squeeze of lemon juice or splash of hot tabasco.
There were mounds of bread and biscotti and candied almonds. For dessert, cannoli and sfogliatelle, surrounding a huge cassata cake—a delicious sponge cake, layered with ice-cream and ricotta, and topped with chopped semi-sweet chocolate, lots of candied citron and orange peel, glacé cherries and blanched pistachio nuts. There was also fig and date cookies called cuccidati that his big Italian family made for Christmas. It was enough food to satisfy the many family, friends, and neighbors who came by, along with leftovers that would be brought down to end of the driveway after the party to feed “the ever present poor.”
Holidays come with all kinds of emotions, which are often amplified by past family wounds, lingering colds and flus, and the general lack of sleep and routines, as we bop around from one event to the next. It can be an exhausting time, especially when the winter season is inviting us to spend our time resting.
If you can find a brief window today, this week’s writing prompt helps us to notice what we are noticing, and stay mindful during all the feasting, fighting, faffing, and fun!
Even if you can’t make the time to write, it is an exercise that can be done as a mediation over the course of just five minutes. I have made it available to both free and paid subscribers, because we could all use the gift of presence during the holidays.
“I watch cooking change the cook, just as it transforms the food.” – Laura Esquivel
Here is this week’s writing prompt.
Try to find a quiet place where you can focus for 20 minutes. The point of this exercise is to write freely, without judgement, and see what comes out of your brain. You can answer each prompt question or start with the one that is most interesting and see where it takes you. Follow your mind, be present with the emotions coming up, and have fun. See if you can keep writing for a full 15 minutes. It might sound like an intimidating amount of time, but I promise it will end up flying by. Just keep going!
Take a deep breath. Tune into the present.
What can you smell? (Is something being cooked in the kitchen? Can you smell the sweet earthy aroma of your dog? )
What can you see? (Where are you? What’s the weather like?)
What can you taste? (Leftovers from lunch? The aftertaste of your favorite cookies?)
What can you hear? (Is the tv on? Someone singing carols? Can you hear the winter birds?)
What do you feel? (Anxiety, joy, nostalgia, gratitude? )
Notice and then notice some more. If there isn’t anything obvious, notice harder. Tune into the subtle things happening around you and inside of you. If nothing else, spend five minutes noticing your breath. What other sensory information arises?
If you had some good insights or surprises from this exercise, share them in the comments below!
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This course includes twenty-one days of simple prompts and exercises, delivered to your Inbox every morning. This self-directed course will help you process your emotions, dream into your food future, and check in with yourself—all in less than 20 minutes a day. You may even find that by the end of the course, you will have completely transformed your relationship with food and found new sources of nourishment.
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Lots of love,
Gina Rae
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