Oct 6, 20212 min read

How walking makes me a better cook

Updated: Jun 7, 2022

A while back I changed my walks into meditative walks. I don’t remember if I read about it or if I just discovered how powerful it is.

It’s not complicated or difficult; there is nothing you need to learn. All you have to do is let your eyes wander over the scene in front of you and whatever grabs your attention you focus on. Actually, you hyper-focus on it until it becomes the only thing you see until you walk past it and your eyes move on to the next thing that grabs your attention and you repeat the process throughout your walk.

The effect is that your mind stops jumping from thought to thought and slows to take in what your eyes are beholding at that moment. As your thoughts quiet down and you become engulfed in the world around you, a sense of peace takes over. And I realize I’m in bliss.

Such a simple thing makes a massive impact.

I thought about that experience and tried to figure out how it could be used to become a better cook

Because cooking is about the combination of ingredients and flavors, it makes sense that focusing on those components will make it easier to anticipate the results of what you are making or adjust something that isn’t quite right.

The best way to do that is to taste everything you cook as you’re cooking it, but instead of using your eyes, let your tastebuds inform you. The more you understand the ingredients and the flavors you use, the more control you have and the easier it is to create great results.