Intuitive and Mindful Cooking

 

Cooking has become one of the most joyous activities in my life. It helps reduce my stress and anxiety while offering a fun and exciting way to express my creativity. More importantly, it’s one of the best ways I can show love to others.

That said, cooking can feel stressful for some, especially when it seems like you’re a slave to a recipe. Unlike baking, where precise measurements are crucial, cooking allows for flexibility. Recipes don’t have to be followed step-by-step. They’re more like a guide. Instead of aiming to master a recipe, focus on mastering the art of intuitive cooking.

I’ve been cooking for most of my adult life and helping in my family’s kitchen since I was a kid. One thing I’ve noticed is that no one in my family ever cooked with recipes. In our Vietnamese culture, cooking isn’t about precise measurements it’s about using feelings and intuition to guide the process. It’s about trusting your instincts and letting your intuition lead, rather than rigidly following a recipe from start to finish.

Before you delve into these recipes, here are some pointers to help you become a good cook, not just a good recipe follower: Make the most of the availability of fresh ingredients, and enhancing their flavors by using your own preferred cooking methods and flavorings.

1. Adapt recipes: You can adapt recipes to suit your preferences, budget, available ingredients, and time. Sometimes, a lack of resources or recipe mistakes could open new doors for innovations. You might even create something with a different flavor that’s better than the original, or at least make the dish your own. Some of the best dishes I’ve created were from accidents, when I improvised with ingredient substitutions.
2. Fine tune your taste bud: Learn from your favorite dishes by first research the foods you love, try to perfect them first, then try to make them better based on your own taste bud.
3. Cooking can provide an opportunity to connect with personal and precious memories. Use your taste memory to guide your cooking to excellence.
4. Practice mindfulness: Mindful cooking is a practice that involves being fully present and attentive while preparing food. It can help people develop a healthy understanding of patience, appreciation, and a non-judgmental attitude. It can also help people cultivate self-awareness, emotional intelligence, stress management, and help you find joy and calmness in the act of cooking. Being present and in an uplifting mood during this whole process:
   • ingredient selections, chopping & cooking
   • engage all five senses while cooking and eating. use your five senses to taste, smell, and feel the texture of each ingredient. Engage all five senses while cooking and eating. Touch the ingredients, feel the texture, listen to the sounds, smell the aromas, and taste each morsel slowly. Focus on one sense at a time while blocking other senses out. 
5. – learn where the ingredients come from
6. – express gratitude for the ingredients you’re using and the environment you’re in. 

• We eat with our eyes so food presentation is important. Put special care into how you present the food on the plate. Your guests will notice and appreciate your efforts. 
• Embrace adaptability as part of the cooking process. Food tastes better if there’s passion behind it. So don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes.

Once you have mastered the art of intuitive & mindful cooking, you can’t help but become a better cook while enjoying the process of cooking to the fullest. Live Happy cooking and live deliciously!