Food For Thought: Winter, Week 7
For our seventh writing prompt, we contemplate slowness.
A reminder that winter is for rest and slowing down is always in style.
I am currently spending a few weeks at an artist residency in Mendocino, and the slow pace of this place is starting to seep into my bones. I have been spending nearly 3 hours a day walking the headlands and beaches. Watching the sea for these long periods of time feels rejuvenating, like I am recharging my creative energies for the year to come. It's quite magical when the sun comes out after a winter rainstorm. The fog slowly lifts, revealing grey whales migrating in the distance, hawks soaring over the cliffs, and waves caressing the massive rocks just offshore. It truly is a place that inspires awe.
The quiet dark season here allows for a special kind of contemplation, a meditation on the immensity of the natural world, and the benefits of connecting to the luxuriously gentle rhythms of winter. Slowing down seems to be a common theme for other artists here as well. Vicki Fraser, a rug weaver, told me her favorite thing about Mendocino in winter is hibernation. She gets up before sunrise to brew her coffee and then sits in a mound of blankets, her nest, in front of the loom. Vicki specializes in hand woven wool yarns and natural dyes. Her incredible California Rug took 22 years to make!
The winter is also the time for wild mushrooms here. Earlier this week, I was in the clay studio (yes this place really is like summer camp for adults). I met a young woman who offered me a bowl of hedgehog mushrooms she had foraged earlier that day from a redwood forest. One of the things I love about wild food is their seasonality. They force us to be present with time and place. They encourage us to slow down and be with what is right now. I cooked them in the evening for dinner. It was hard to eat them slowly because they tasted amazing.
There is evidence that eating slowly improves digestion and helps us to better absorb nutrients. An unhurried meal can also increase our enjoyment of the food, which makes our gut bacteria happy and healthy. One of my favorite organizations dedicated to adopting a more holistic way of eating is Slow Food. They support traditional and heritage approaches to food, which are not highly processed or mechanized and thus take more time. They have regional chapters around the world, and it’s worth checking out what’s going on in your community.
Sometimes I fantasize about moving to an olive oil farm in Italy. I think about my Sicilian ancestors and imagine they enjoyed long leisurely lunches, followed by an afternoon pisolino, before returning to their work. I aspire to this kind of schedule, but still find it difficult to take a break in the middle of the day when I think I should be productive. Time is a funny thing. The faster we go, the more we get used to that pace. It can be hard to slow down. It can feel uncomfortable to take a break and appreciate a meal.
But winter is an excellent season to nest and rest. While we might not all get the chance to go slow by the sea, our daily meals are a perfect time to reflect on time and adopt a quieter pace. Our writing prompts this week will help us to contemplate how we can become less rushed in our food lives, and how we can deepen the practice of being with the pace of nature.
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 the full 15 minutes. It might sound like an intimidating amount of time, but I promise it will end up flying by. Just keep going!
Recall a meal that you spent a long time cooking. Did that time include growing or harvesting the ingredients as well? Was it a stew that simmered for hours? A bread that took four days to rise and bake? A ferment that took a month ripen?
Are you a fast or slow eater? Why did you adopt this pace? Does it change depending on the company or if you are alone? Do you eat all your meals at this pace or just some of them?
What have you noticed about the pace of our food culture? Can you recall an ancestor who had a slow way of being with food?
If you were to go with the pace of nature, how slow would you go today? What would you eat? How would you cook? What else would change about your relationship to food?
Write for fifteen minutes.
Bonus Exercise: Eat a meal with no distraction. Don’t watch tv, read a book, or talk to someone. Just eat mindfully, focusing on your breath while you eat. Notice what you are feeling and thinking. Spend ten minutes afterward taking notes about the experience and writing down whatever comes to mind.
If you had some good insights or surprises from this writing exercise, share them in the comments below!
Are you a writer who also loves to take photographs? Or a photographer who would like to improve your writing?
I will be teaching an online workshop February 19 – March 19, 2025 where I will cover the foundational aspects of creative writing, including narrative arc, structure, sentence construction, timing, transitions, and character development. For extra support, I will also engage in a 30-minute, one-on-one session with each participant.
Whether you ultimately plan to write an introductory essay for a photo book, enhance your bio or artist statement, or simply create excellent image captions for social media, this workshop helps you discover how enlightening and pleasurable writing can be—especially when you start small. In the process of constructing a piece of flash memoir, you will find your creativity reinvigorated, both on the page and through the lens.
Visit the link below to learn more and register for this online workshop:
bit.ly/writing-for-photographers-25
If you want to dive deeper with your food writing, consider signing up for my 21 Day Food Writing Journey.
This self-directed course includes twenty-one days of simple writing prompts and exercises, delivered to your Inbox every morning. It will help you check in with yourself, process your emotions, and dream into your food future—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.
Lots of love,
Gina Rae
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