Things I did when I was hangry : navigating a peaceful relationship with food

228 Pages·2015·1.56 MB·English

by  Mahon

“This is a marvelous book, so real and realistic, around the issues of food and
solutions in how to meet what we eat with care and mindfulness. Annie Mahon
has offered us not only recipes for eating but recipes for living. I am so
grateful.”
—Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
“Beautifully written and compulsively readable, this book is a feast of
compassion for the struggling, weak, suffering sides of us. It’s heaped full of
comfort and practical help for anyone who struggles with painful emotions,
self-doubt, and the desperate urge to not feel what we are feeling. Highly
recommended, with a deep bow.”
—Ann Weiser Cornell, The Radical Acceptance of Everything and Presence
“With courage and humility, Mahon reminds us that food—rather than being
fraught with disconnection and discontent—can help us come to our senses. As
we cook and eat, she gently encourages us to listen to our bodies, to reclaim our
original natures, and to recall our deep and intimate membership in the wider
world.”
—Tovar Cerulli, The Mindful Carnivore
“Annie’s compassionate writing addresses an issue of struggle for so many—
every day eating. Through the sharing of her journey and struggles, you’ll gain
insight into your own relationship with food, discover ways to work with
disordered eating, and learn practical tips to adjust your palate and habits for
overall well-being.”
—Kimberly Wilson, Tranquility du Jour Anthology and Tranquilista
“Take one raw, hilarious, searingly honest, and compulsively readable memoir;
fold in a wise, compassionate guide to mindful eating; and blend it with a
delicious vegetarian cookbook. That’s the recipe for Annie Mahon’s nutritious
new book Things I Did When I Was Hangry. Whether you devour it in one
sitting or savor it for days in small bites, this book is a feast for the spirit.”
—Anne Cushman, Moving into Meditation
Things I Did When I Was Hangry

To my mom and dad without whom my world would not exist. And to all of the
women and men who suffer because of their relationship with food.
Contents
Introduction
About the Recipes
1. STARTING from SCRATCH
An Ingredient’s Origin Shapes Its Flavor
2. COMFORT FOOD
Keep Trying Until You Get It Right
3. SLICING, DICING, SAUTÉING, and BURNING
Discovering Unusual Techniques for Dealing with an Eating Disorder
4. FROG on a PLATE
Trying New Tastes and Sharing Mindfulness Practice with My Family
5. PRESSURE COOKER
My Children’s Struggles with Food and Learning the Value of Community
6. DETAILED INGREDIENTS
How to Figure Out What’s Eating You
7. BUILDING FLAVOR
Making a Deeper Commitment to Mindfulness Practice, Community, and the Proper Way to Hug
8. BREAKING BREAD
Lessons from My Ancestors, and the Path to Freedom
Appendices
Notes
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I WROTE THIS BOOK BECAUSE I didn’t really know how or what to eat until
I began practicing mindfulness. Once I did, I became aware of how many others
experience suffering around eating as well. I hope this story, of one family’s
experience, will help. It has been more challenging for me to be joyfully present
in my kitchen than in any other room of my house. My goal for the last two
decades has been to relearn how to nourish myself with food. Mindfulness has
been my best teacher.
Eating is not a winning game, but if it were, I would never win the award for
“Most Mindful Eater.” I might, however, win for “Most Improved,” or maybe
“Valuable Team Player.” I have overcome a pattern of eating disorders and held
the hand of several friends and relatives as they walked various paths to healing
their own eating disorders. Along the way, my relationship with food and
cooking changed.
The basic practice of mindful cooking and eating is this: In each moment, if
your mind wanders away from what you’re doing, pause, breathe, and return
your attention to your physical experience, whether it’s preparing food or eating
it. It’s really that simple.
I had dinner a year ago with a woman who is considered an expert on
mindful eating. In the weeks leading up to our meal, I worried about her seeing
that I wasn’t a real “mindful eater.” Fortunately, my companion didn’t seem to
notice when I overloaded my fork or talked with my mouth full. We simply
enjoyed our conversation and our food. I realized that this was an example of
how I had wasted years of my life worrying about what and how I would eat,
judging myself and expecting others to judge me too. This habit has kept me
from enjoying my food and my life more times than I can count. Mindfulness
has not dissolved this habit, but it has made me more aware of it, and now this
worrying happens much less often.
The aim of practicing mindful cooking and eating is to increase the joy of
cooking and eating. When I mentioned to a friend that I was writing this book,
she assumed that I cook every meal at home joyfully and eat every meal with my
family in mindful bliss. She thought I might judge her way of cooking and eating
because it wasn’t like that. Wrong. It isn’t the end of the world if my family
orders in pizza, has pancakes for dinner, or talks nonstop through a meal. It’s
okay if we don’t agree about food and what to eat. There isn’t a right way to do
it, and it doesn’t help anyone to be judged for how and where they eat.
These days, I rarely obsess about what to cook and eat. I eat mostly
intuitively and enjoy taking care of myself and my loved ones by creating and
eating healthy meals that taste good. I still work on remembering to cook with
awareness and to eat sitting down without distractions. There’s a saying that
resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. My
relationship with food has been like this: I was angry at food for its power over
me, and so I ate it without enjoying it. Of course, the one who suffered was me.
When I was a young child, I was much more in touch with my food. I
remember enjoying the look and smell of green peas as they rolled around my
plate, their texture when I squished them with the back of my fork, and how it
seemed to take forever to finish the one spoonful I had been served.
But, like many of us, my upbringing, my genes, and the cultural pressures of
the times conspired to change my relationship with preparing and eating food.
By the time I reached puberty, I was already unable to enjoy eating because of
my preoccupation with my weight. Preparing food wasn’t as interesting either; I
had other, seemingly more important, things to do. I no longer listened to what
my body wanted and needed to eat.
As I got older, life got busier and I had even less time for cooking and eating.
I began to eat out more often or to buy food that was processed or prepared. I
was lost more often in my mind rather than experiencing life through my senses
in the present moment. To begin the process of transformation, I had to be able
to stop running around, stop distracting myself, stop thinking so much about
food, and start experiencing food the way I had as a child.
I have been very lucky to have had enough food to eat throughout my life,
while many people in this world have not. The idea of bingeing, purging, or
purposeful starving would be incomprehensible to some people living in the
world now, and certainly to a lot of our less well-off ancestors. As I reflect on
the difficulties that my family and I have experienced around food, I am also
reminded over and over again of how extremely fortunate we have been to have
each other and to have all the resources that we need to survive.
Lastly, in addition to my mindfulness meditation and yoga practices, I have
had the benefit of a good therapist through the years who has specifically helped
me around eating disorders. I’m not sure I would have been able to make the
changes I have without the time I spent with her.
After years of practice and therapy, I am still not one hundred percent
mindful in the kitchen. Sometimes I eat lunch in front of my email, while
reading the newspaper, or even while driving to teach a meditation class.
Sometimes I make my lunch and it’s eaten before I even realize it. What my
mindfulness practice does is keep me from freaking out or beating myself up.
More often than not, I simply laugh at myself and try again next time. And that
feels like progress to me.
There are many positive side effects to mindful cooking and eating, but this
book is not about how to lose weight, look younger, or become a top chef. It’s
about learning how to show up for the moments of your life, and it is likely that
you spend many of them in the kitchen or around food. My hope is that, in
sharing my story, practices, and recipes, you will find help restoring your own
natural capacity for nourishment with food and be able to reduce suffering both
in yourself and in the world.