I pulled out an old James Barber cookbook the other night, for some assistance making risotto, and this elicited a long quiet hmm-mmm moment for me…

The best recipes, he said, are the simplest. They just take time.

…and I’m very much taken with time as an ingredient.

Cooking something slowly and meditatively is a luxury, and a perfect excuse for doing almost nothing, very carefully.

I teach a class occasionally for heart attack survivors, most of them power trippers addicted to moving and shaking the affairs of the world. I teach them to make bread. Their doctors tell them it’s for the exercise, and indeed there is a bit of muscle involved in the kneading. But the really interesting thing to watch is their coming to terms with doing nothing.

The bread won’t rise in a hurry. Nothing will speed it up. After the second time, they realize that the longer it takes to rise, the better the bread is, and so they have even longer to spend fully occupied with doing nothing.

But there is nobody teaching breadmaking in medical school, and no chances to learn about the therapeutic values of stirring – just standing there, alone in time, with a wooden spoon in your hand.

Soup. Bread. Whatever.

Worth a try.