The Joy of Cooking Together
Does anyone else have a problem with these new businesses that offer so-called "group cooking experiences" for women? The business owner provides the food and the recipes and the customers prepare the food to take home -- soups and casseroles and the like -- to eat during the week. While the idea isn’t so bad at the core, it doesn’t allow women to use their own recipes, choose their own healthful, organic ingredients, and drives a stake of capitalism into the heart of what women have been doing on their own for centuries.
Have you ever watched a group of intimate women cooking together? It's a graceful ballet, with each finding the group rhythm, reaching and handing over, chopping and tossing. Somehow, even without words, it just works. And the owners of these new businesses are trying to sell us something we already own.
Instead of paying for the experience, invite a dear friend or friends to your house. It doesn't matter how clean or dirty your house is or how large or small your kitchen. Choose some recipes that each family will enjoy and get to cooking and talking and laughing. I promise you'll have a fantastic time and will end up with several dinners prepped and ready to enjoy throughout the week to boot. If you're feeling especially ambitious, plan a canning or freezing party. Why not store up the bounty of the warmer months for when the winds of winter start to blow?
I've made bread with girlfriends in college and mixed up chutney and dahl with a friend when I was a new wife. I recall these times so fondly and I felt like I really bonded with those women. And I didn't need anyone to sell it to me... and neither do you.
posted by Jill @ 6:30 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Actually, I disagree. It is best to eat and cook at home together as a family. However, this rarely happens with school-aged children living the typical activity-packed lifestyle with both parents working. Most families are eating fastfood in their cars. A meal together usually consists of a delivered pizza and movie. For busy working moms I think these super supper businesses are a lifesaver and more nutritious than burgers and fries .
I cringe when I hear the words "activity packed lifestyle" families.
Why do we, as women and mothers, so readily give away to complete strangers the food safety and health of our families?! Just review the recent rash of contaminated food deaths for both our human family and our pet family members!
Why do we fall to all the "shoulds" of what children need to be successful? One day children "need" this list of activities to get into the best schools and land the best jobs. The same or the very next day you see a screaming headline "children are too busy to play causing anxiety and stress"?!
Nothing is as important as feeding our family member's bodies and souls. Yes I said it...out loud...the great taboo of society! Not soccer, nor scouts, nor school fundraisers, nor church commitment, nor play dates...nor...nor...nor...!
Why is it that we feel compelled to answer societies call of "more" is better? When did simple become the enemy? When did "being family" become the icon of children doomed for academic and employment failure?!
We as women/mothers/grandmothers must take back the responsibility of "time to be a family"! God has charged us with this great, wonderful and frightening responsibility! I believe that we will be asked to account for our calendar time based on how we build our families.
This means saying "no" to outside commitments that slowly drain our time and energy. It so quietly and quickly steals the minutes that can provide for spontaneous play, private important conversations and just being there...the wonderful knowing that when I come home there will be a heart that loves me and arms that accept all the tension and pain of the day and hug it into perspective!
So lets take back our calendars! Don't go to cook with strangers at a "club" or eat food prepared by strangers! Clear a day on your calendar for planning, preparing and cooking your weekly meals as a family! If it makes you feel better declare it "Family Cooking Class" and put it on your official calendar! (keeps you from being tempted to write in something else "important":-)
I promise you, as a family therapist, that your children's memories of all those "important/can't live without" calendar dates will fade because they are constantly being replaced by "newer and better" outside things.
I also can promise you, as a family therapist, that they will spend the rest of their lives dealing with the fact that "quality time" really meant that they were just another reminder on your always crowded social calendar!
Deborah
This comment has been removed by the author.
Here's to cooking for our families! It is so rewarding to have my boys learn how to put a meal on the table and appreciate the work that it takes. And I really love knowing where my food came from and who washed it. Don't get me wrong...I love a good meal out, too. But a rushed meal, in ANY circumstance, is unsatisfying and downright unhealthy.
And here's to working in our own kitchens with women! Some of my best memories of childhood are of summer canning/freezing detail with my great aunts. Mama Liz and Aunt NeNe were a powerhouse of activity when the gardens came in. I would join them in their circle to snap beans, shell peas, peel tomatoes, shuck and silk corn...you name it. You could see the dust rising from the driveway as Uncle Floyd or Uncle George would bring the next load of produce in. I would work until my young hands were sore and stained black and brown. And I loved EVERY minute of it! The air was thick with the smell of blanched vegetables and even thicker with the tales and wisdom shared. I know I learned more about living, especially as a Christian woman, from those two ladies than I ever did in school.
I'm making myself want to buy a bunch of beans and try to remember how to can them.
Anybody want to come over? :-)
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