I’m a big fan of Tim Ferris and a couple months ago I read his best-seller “The 4 Hour Work Week” again. There is a lot of good stuff there, including good ideas on life style. One that is easy and cheap to implement is taking one meal a week and make it a ‘slow meal’.
My wife and I usually have supper together every week day and on the weekends all the three meals most of the times, but having one special meal, during which we take our time to talk, sip a good wine and enjoy 3 or 4 courses makes a great quality time. It’s almost like going on a date without leaving home and putting fancy clothes.
Everything on our lives move too fast nowadays. And there are distractions and things on our minds all the time. We try not to do that as rule, but a lot of people will take their phones to the table, check messages, read facebook or whatever during the meal without ever interacting or enjoying their families. Geez, I hear that a lot of people don’t even have meals with their families. Each member of the household has their own schedule for eating. :-\
If that is your case, take one meal a week (I suggest Friday or Saturday night or Sunday lunch) and shutdown your electronic devices, put the nice china and silverware out, (some candles maybe?) and cook a good meal.
Yeah, the cook part is important too. Don’t order stuff. It’s part of the process, the fun. I usually start with a salad or appetizer, we eat and talk for a few minutes. Depending on the meal the next course could still be in the oven or maybe I’ll start cooking it after the salad… I don’t know. Take. Your. Time.
If you want some ideas on what to cook, Tim has another book for novice cooks called “The 4-Hour Chef” which I recommend not only for the recipes.
I’ll be cooking our weekly slow meal today. And this time will be steak.