Last night, my friend Kris asked me how I got into cooking, why I like it. I took a moment, and remembered a (paraphrased) point from Ruth R.'s Garlic and Sapphires:
"Cooking is dangerous. You have to pay attention, meditation on the edge of a knife, and it gives me solace."
That's what I feel, and sometimes why I cook the same foods over and over. It's not so much that the eating of them is comfort, but that the making of them is. I love chopping. I like peeling. I have another job away from this desk where sometimes I get to use a chef's knife and cut romaine lettuce, and really, that ups my happy for the day.
At that moment, all I am focused on is how wide to make the cuts and how to make sure that my fingers are not in the cuts. And that present, that presence is pure bliss. I'm not thinking about deadlines, bills, relationships, or anything. Not anything but lettuce.
It's like those guys that mow the grass and make it almost a zen practice, or the woman that vacuums when she's anxious (you know who you are).
That being said, I cut myself sometimes, burn myself sometimes still and generally am on occasion extremely clumsy, especially when a glass of wine is in reach of my elbow. It's a practice, ok?
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