#7 | appreciation 🥰: mushroom season, slow pleasures, small decisions
i’ve recently noticed how much the weather affects my general wellbeing. i’d even go as far as to say that avoiding cold, wet winters is a driving behavior of mine, along with exploring cities and seeking out delicious things to eat. on rainy days, i’m more likely to be lethargic and less likely to go places that require walking uphill. i don’t mind a small drizzle, but when the air feels like a wet blanket you can’t shake off, that’s it for me. i’m resigning myself to ordering my favorite sourdough pizza and eating snacks on the couch.
thankfully, there were some sunny or mostly-sunny days in the past week. today was an ideal one—a day where the most banal descriptions ring true—clear skies, fluffy white clouds, cotton candy sunsets. and it made me really really happy. i find it easier to be grateful when life’s generally going well; easier to notice things to appreciate when i’m less stressed. in the spirit of appreciation, this update is about small joys slowly savored. slow pleasures in a fast-paced world.
three things
i’m thankful for this past week. looking at the pictures in this section, it can also be titled “land and sea” as most are of mushrooms and seafood.
postcards—sending more so than receiving.
making the time to write a postcard seems like a luxury in this digital age. it involves finding a suitable card design, remembering to bring a pen, pulling up an address, and deciding on a message that isn’t too reliant on a quick delivery time (rip international christmas cards) before being stamped and sent off. the process is just as much for me to slow down and intentionally communicate as it is for the recipient.
mushroom season.
there’s no one mushroom season as different types grow year-round, but many varieties appear in the fall. so i’ve been eating them at restaurants as well as cooking with them in my kitchen. mushrooms started appearing on menus in germany in september (coinciding with my trip there), and when the season rolled around in portugal two months later due to the warmer climate, i was excited to be able to have them in abundance again. there are so many different kinds, all with different tastes and textures. they’re good stewed, with sauces (or in sauces), in stocks, with a complementary umami element like egg, or simply crisped up.
a mushroom-centric dish on a november menu.
so many mushrooms at the saturday market.
mushrooms pizza, with walnuts and caramelized onion. very autumnal.
usually mapo tofu has meat, but i used shiitake. no umami was compromised in the making of this dish.
long weekends.
i took the thanksgiving long weekend to eat out and spend more time in third spaces. my cousin visited from london and while he was only here for 46 hours, we definitely ate more than our fair share of oysters, crab, lobster rice, shrimp, and chocolate mousse during that time.
two types of food i never get sick of are seafood and eggs.
particularly soft-scrambled eggs.
more small pleasures, but make it multisensory
one of my values is joy, and i wrote about some small moments of happiness in my last newsletter. (the previous update also includes different ways to get inspired, if you missed it.) some small joys i often seek out are drinking coffee in a nice cafe, buying freshly-baked bread, and enjoying a hearty brunch. but stopping to fully appreciate these moments, taking the time to slowly immerse in them, is something i want to do more.
i’ve started seeing my small joys as slow pleasures by dedicating slightly more time and attention to the activity and its multisensory elements. for example:
1: drinking coffee in a nice cafe.
slowed down: noticing how my filter coffee tastes more floral as it cools, or how the milk foam of a flat white feels on my tongue. stirring the crema and savoring the lingering finish of a perfectly-pulled espresso.
2: breaking freshly-baked bread from my favorite bakery.
slowed down: hearing the crackle and feeling the snap of a crusty loaf, inhaling the aroma of the still-warm sourdough in my hands. comparing the texture of the chewy crust to the fluffy insides.
3: eating a fresh, delicious dish for brunch. let’s say a ball of buratta on some confit tomatoes.
slowed down: carefully slicing the burrata down the middle to see the stracciatella spill out. noting the fragrance of the olive oil, the sharpness of the black pepper, the soft texture of the confit tomatoes, the creaminess of the cheese, melting together in one harmonious bite.
there’s something to be said about these small sensory pleasures, slowly savoring them, stretching them out.
to indulge in a solitary moment is to choose an intentional break from everything else that’s going on, if only for a short while. a brief respite in a fast-paced life.
the small decisions of small joys
making decisions is less fatiguing when those decisions are small, and when all options have guaranteed good outcomes. deciding where to go for brunch from two choices with delicious food and coffee. upon arrival, deciding whether to order the greek salad or the salmon salad. an espresso or an americano. a lemon tart or a chocolate cookie. when you already know you’ll enjoy the end result, the question becomes: which do you want more? which are you more inclined to having today?
there’s no fear of missing out, as i know i’ll have the chance to indulge in the other option in the future. (unless a place suddenly closes, but the probably seems low now that is the pandemic isn’t as pervasive.)
i’ve been quite stress-free the past week, so many of my decisions have been these tiny choices, without great consequence. after waking up naturally, a leisurely brunch. one coffee followed by another, then tea and dessert, then a walk along the river before starting work in the afternoon. even deciding what kind of tea to make among the many different kinds at home feels imbued with greater intentionality, because i spend more time and energy enjoying it than i previously would.
that’s all for now—a relatively short update as the week seems to have flown by. let’s end with a christmas bauble that suddenly appeared downtown. hope everyone is doing well!