The Japanese Curry Game

One blustery afternoon last fall, I was feeling stressed and disappointed. I wanted to be home, but I was out, waiting for something to end that I had no power to hurry along. From my days in cognitive behavioral therapy, I knew that if I could find a way to steer my thoughts in the right direction—toward meaning and groundedness—my feelings might follow. Soon I came upon just the thing to ponder, the ultimate question, really: What would I make for dinner?

I performed a quick mental inventory of the ingredients sitting in my fridge and cabinets at home. I considered the crisp, chilly November weather. I considered my troubles and decided I’d make the coziest, most comforting thing I could think of: Japanese Curry.

I knew just where the little box of Golden Curry Sauce Mix would be in my kitchen when I got home—in its pasty bricks, just waiting to dissolve and alchemize into a silky sauce.

So as to get a jump start on that comfort, I decided to type out in my phone’s mail app a list of all the ingredients I’d be using and then the entire recipe as I waited. Since then, writing out my recipes—usually for what I’d like to cook later that day—has become a practice, particularly when I’m feeling stressed or empty or bored.

The irony is that when I’m actually cooking, I hardly ever follow recipes, mine or others. Sure, I’ll open up Priya Krishna’s Indian-ish, or search for an Alison Roman recipe on NYT Cooking, or watch a Chinese Cooking Demystified video for big picture inspiration or guidance on a technique, but I seem constitutionally incapable of actually following a recipe, unless I’m baking. The recipes I type up in as an email to no one just disappear into my drafts folder. In that respect, they don’t function as recipes, but are instead a way for me to cook when I can’t actually cook.

When I got home from work that evening, tired and preoccupied, I briefly considered bailing on the cooking plans I’d made. Instead, I started moving through the steps I’d typed out earlier: chopping an onion, dicing sweet potatoes, slicing carrots, mincing garlic, defrosting chicken breast, on and on. I slipped into a state of flow and by the time I emerged, I realized I’d left my stress behind and become reinvigorated. That was the first time it really struck me how good cooking makes me feel. But it isn’t that it distracts or diverts me from my cares. Instead, it feels centering.

What do I mean by centering? I feel like me.

So much of the time I feel I am living in the future: predicting what will be, wondering what should be, striving to bring about what could be. And I don’t necessarily feel like that’s a bad thing. I’m not sure how to reconcile this with the teachings of mindfulness I hold dear, but I find engaging with the future deeply meaningful. I think one problem though, is that when you are “in the moment” you can be truly grounded, and it’s easy to get swept up thinking about the future. That’s what had caused the stress and preoccupation I felt as I began to cook that evening.

And even when I was cooking, I was still future-minded. Cooking involves much of the same predicting, wondering, and striving. But they are all grounded. The kitchen and the cooking project form a little ecosystem of present and future. I quickly get feedback about what will be, whether my ideas of what should be are good, whether what could be can be. As I cook, I’m still engaging with the future, but in the kitchen the future is sweetly tethered to the present.