Food Rules: The Edible Experiment, Week Ten

Journal Entry
Week Ten
November 5, 2010

Rule 51 “Spend as much time enjoying a meal as you took to prepare it”

I REALLY had a problem with this one. Now granted, I don’t always take a ton of time to prepare a meal... I'm always the one wishing I had more time so that I could actually cook! Haha. Ok so here is what my typical day usually consists of:

Breakfast: Pour cereal in bowl, add dried fruit, add milk. (3 minutes). Now eating a 3-minute breakfast seems insane… but trust me, it’s been done. Trying to get out of the door in the morning to beat the 1.5 hour morning traffic commute to make it to class on time? I’m lucky I get to eat at all! (Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, though, so I do make it a point to eat otherwise I’m falling over by 10 am) If I can, I usually try to sit at my kitchen table and eat my cereal… as slowly as I can… which sometimes is just simply “shovel it down and go”-style.

Lunch: Well technically, this better have already been prepared and sitting in my lunch bag in the fridge, ready to grab and go in the morning. It usually consists of a sandwich of some sort, and fruit or yogurt, or maybe a munchy vegetable like grape tomatoes, whatever I happen to have. I’d say lunch usually takes me about 10 minutes to prepare at the most, and probably about the same to eat.

Dinner: I am usually starving when I get home from school, so while trying not to ravage my fridge and pantry all at the same time, I usually try to cook a little something for dinner. This will take anywhere from 15 – 20 minutes, but probably only about 10 – 15 minutes to consume, provided its not too hot to burn my mouth as I’m eating it, haha.

Ok so yes, I know, I really need to work on slowing down when I eat! (Yes, it might even be nice to chew at times.) Grr Pollan, I haven’t mastered you quite yet. But I do have to say, some of the most memorable times I've had have been around the dining room table or with friends at a restaurant where there is actually time to relax and visit and enjoy each other's company before (and then while) sharing a meal together. And, needless to say, visiting Italy? They know how to do it right over there! 2 - 3 hours per meal... WOW! But so much is to be learned from that experience... there is value in eating slowly, especially when you're with others!