Manual effort

hosta

Summer is just about over.  Fall is on it's way.  Almost all the hummingbirds have already headed south.  I spotted only two today.  Time to start reducing the number of feeders outside, but a couple will be left out for straggler migrating hummers who are still coming down from farther north.

This past week I cut a lot of vegetables for making chili, a savory egg salad, and something else that I for some reason can't recall at the moment.  It can take quite a while to do that, although I have gotten fairly speedy over the years and I use a knife-resistant glove on my non-knife hand to protect it which means I can do it without worrying about a cut.  Someone once asked me why I didn't just buy pre-cut vegetables in containers from the grocery store.  The obvious answer to that is probably that size counts, and one would have to cut all those vegetables anyway.  But another answer is that there is a different feel to cooking if you do it all yourself by hand.  I like taking ownership of that prep process.  I want to cut those vegetables to the size and shape that I desire.  And doing it is actually quite a peaceful and relaxing thing to do.  Of course that can change if I'm on a timetable, but I try not to cook on a timetable.  I like to go at whatever pace I want to go without regard to the clock, without worrying about a deadline.

When you do it all yourself it feels different.  Maybe it's almost like a meditative thing.  I don't know exactly.  But the process is nice.  At least I think so.  Then again, sometimes I have to cut of lot, I mean a lot, of vegetables and I have to admit it wouldn't be bad to have a little help in doing it.  If that help is a second person doing the cutting, then that's great.  Cooking with others is a community thing.  So it's not that I have to do it all by myself as a matter of principle.  I just like to have it done all there in the kitchen where food is being made, I guess.  

The manual effort that goes into cooking is a good thing for the soul.  I think manual effort in anything is good for us.  And cooking by nature will always require a lot of that.  When you do something with your own hands, the final product really does feel different.