Newsletter #41: 👩‍🍳🎉 Cook like no one’s watching

Cook like no one’s watching

I’m sprinkling pictures of my recent kitchen creations throughout the newsletter!

The purpose of this week's newsletter is to help you find more JOY in the process of cooking through a series of 11 simple ideas and mindset shifts that make the time in the kitchen more meaningful and playful.

This newsletter was inspired by a recent evening chatting with my fiancé in the kitchen, dreaming about how fun it will be to cook with our future kids. Meal times are some of the most meaningful parts of our day—moments where we connect, create, and nourish. These moments let us enjoy each other, our home, and beautiful food. To me, this is very precious time. At some point in the conversation, the idea arose from one of us that perhaps we’ll need to get into more structured "meal prepping" and "batch cooking" when we have children to be more “efficient.”

At the mere mention of “meal prepping” and “efficiency” in the kitchen, I felt a pang of unexpected emotional resistance. My insides said, “No!!”

As I explored my reaction, I realized the reason I reacted so strongly is that the act of letting intuition and spontaneity guide me in the kitchen is part of what makes it so special.

Time in the kitchen is some of my most magical, intuitive, creative time of the day, so why would I want to regiment that process—especially when actively trying to inspire a sense of magic, intuition, and creativity in children?

Cooking, for me, isn’t just a task to be completed—it’s a time for self-expression. The counter and fridge filled with colorful food is my paint 🖌️ , the pans and roasting trays my palette 🎨 , the plate is my canvas 🖼️ ! I long to share that love with kids, not to schedule and systematize our life into an treadmill of over-engineered efficiency.

Cooking adds a unique dimension to creativity because the “paint”—i.e., the food that is the medium of the art—literally becomes the cells, atoms, and bodies of my fiancé and me. This food then in large part determines and dictates our mental and physical health!

Even if cooking isn’t such a passion for you, I believe it can still be an opportunity to lean into expressing artistry and playfulness. Use those 20, 30, or 40+ minutes a day to connect with the artist in you, rather than viewing it as a chore to be done “right” or “wrong.” This mindset shift doesn’t require more time, effort, or cost—it simply invites more fun, nutrients, and self-expression into your daily life. Cooking becomes less about the outcome and more about exprugh the medium of food.

Meal prepping and batch cooking have their place, for SURE—especially during busy times of life, holidays, or parties. I sometime do it. But our productivity-obsessed Western culture seems to kill the joy of the everyday act of cooking. It strips away the alchemical mystery of transformation that happens when ingredients become nourishment.

We don’t need more activities that make us feel rigid and robotic. In our rationality-obsessed society, what I think we actually need are more activities that delight our senses, encourage flow, and let us play. By shifting our mindset with cooking, we can transform the time we already spend in the kitchen into a practice that builds the muscle of intuition, flow, and self-trust—qualities that are sorely disregarded in a world of endless productivity that somehow is leaving humans and the planet sicker.

By normalizing disconnection and speed in every aspect of food preparation: growing food, sourcing food, preparing food, serving food, and eating food, we’ve transferred our attention to “more important” activities—like endless scheduled tasks, scrolling, and work. And we’re paying for it: as a society, we’re sicker, heavier, more depressed, and more infertile than ever. Kids are sick. Life expectancy is going down. Something isn’t working. And I think in part, losing our connection with food—the very substance that makes up our cells and rebuilds our bodies every day—has caused us to lose connection with ourselves.

A selection of Dr. Casey “hodge-podge” meals!

👩‍🍳 How I cook: no plan, most of the time

When I cook, I almost never start with a plan. I don’t write shopping lists for the farmer’s market—I let my eyes and intuition guide me. What feels fresh and vibrant? On some level, this is because I’m not very organized. On another level, I believe the body knows what it needs and so each day I get to dynamically respond to what my body wants. No animals (other than humans and domesticated pets) seem to need nutritionists or "experts" to guide them—they instinctively know how to eat and thrive. I think we have this inner knowing, too, but it takes presence, trust, and deprogramming to access it.

Unless it’s a holiday and I’m making specific recipes, my strategy each week is to fill the kitchen with fresh, colorful, high-quality ingredients. Most of these I get at the farmer’s market (produce, meat, beans, oils, honey), and some things I order online or get at Whole Foods. I find that when you eat mostly fresh, organic, whole foods, pretty much everything tastes good together!

When I start cooking dinner, I simply walk into the kitchen turn the stove to medium with a cast iron skillet on top and preheat the oven to 425°F. Then I peruse the kitchen and pantry and generally start by picking 2–3 vegetables that look beautiful and chop them up. I’ll toss them with avocado oil and spices and either throw them in the heated pan or in the oven. We harvest lettuce and herbs from our Lettuce Grow and make a quick salad dressing in a mason jar. Next, I think about protein: Am I craving beans? Soft-boiled eggs? Ground bison? Pasture-raised chicken? Defrosted wild-caught fish? As the vegetables cook and the protein comes together, I think about toppings: chopped nuts, microgreens, a drizzle of sauce, edible flowers, fresh herbs, or bright pink sauerkraut? What sounds fun today? As things finish cooking, I arrange it on the plate in a way that is fun and playful, and then I’m done!

A lot of this was reinforced by learning about the “automatic painting” style of artist Hilma af Klint, where instead of having a “goal” with her paintings, she just got into a meditative state and let the art flow through her: Read more here in my Newsletter #5 about Hilma! (She’s EPIC!). Any Hilma coffee table book would be a really nice holiday gift.

Odd but yummy!

📝 The issue with being too wedded to recipes

For many—and I find especially for women—recipes can feel like another prescriptive standard to follow. Something that we can either do “right” or “wrong,” when in reality, there are no rules and no one is “watching” or judging. While recipes are useful for learning techniques and flavor combinations, they shouldn’t dictate every move in the kitchen. Intuitive and joyful cooking means tasting as you go, trusting your palate, and making adjustments based on what feels right in the moment.

This doesn’t mean ignoring structure entirely. Basic techniques—like roasting, sautéing, or balancing flavors—are essential foundations. Taking a few cooking classes (Thai, vegan, French) or online tutorials can help build these skills. But once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s can be so valuable and fun to experiment without rules.

🎉 11 steps to more joy in the kitchen

1. Plate your food in ways that make you smile. This is the easiest, fastest, and most accessible way to make time in the kitchen more fun. Simply plate your food in a fun way that brings you delight! Literally, play with your food! 👇️ 

   1. 🌸 Add edible flowers to your dish! (You can grow these easily in the garden or Lettuce Grow!)

   2. 🍇 Sprinkle colorful garnishes like microgreens, pomegranate seeds, or colorful chopped fruit on top of your dish for extra flavor and color

   3. 👩‍🍳 Spread purees (like hummus, yogurt, or pureed vegetables) on the base of a plate and layer your dish on top

   4. 🖌️ Use a zip-top bag with the corner snipped to drizzle sauces artistically around the plate

   5. 🥕 Incorporate pops of color with fermented foods like sauerkraut or pickled vegetables

   6. 🌱 Sprinkle seeds like Beeya or Zen basil seeds on top of your finished meal or around the main entree

   7. 🌶️ Drizzle organic hot sauce like Yellowbird in fun patterns on the plate!

   8. 👑 Slice fruit into tiny wedges or triangles and use these to make fun patterns or “crowns” around the plate

2. Learn basic cooking techniques. Before you can improvise, it helps to have a foundation. Learn essential cooking techniques like roasting, sautéing, steaming, and boiling. You can watch YouTube videos (check out my cooking series with Levels!), read cookbooks (my favorites are here in my gift guide), or take classes to master these basics. For example: Learn how to roast vegetables with crispy edges and caramelized flavor. Practice sautéing greens to maintain their vibrant color and retain nutrients. Try making a simple pan sauce by deglazing with wine or broth after cooking a protein. I can’t believe they don’t teach this in school anymore!! 🤦‍♀️ 

   1. 💡 I think taking a Thai cooking class, a vegan cooking class, and a French cooking class can all be useful to get a baseline of flavor balancing, cooking plants, and cooking meats and sauces, respectively. Try doing a cooking class as an activity for a birthday or a date! You can find these at cooking schools or on AirBNB experiences!

3. Develop comfort with flavors. Experiment with mixing various organic spices, herbs, and condiments to discover what you like. Pay attention to the five flavor elements—sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami—and aim to incorporate a mix of these into your dishes. Some ways to practice:

   1. Add a squeeze of citrus or a splash of vinegar to brighten up a dish.

   2. Mix contrasting flavors, like a sweet tahini honey drizzle over spicy roasted vegetables.

   3. Take a Thai cooking class, which can teach you how to balance the five main flavors of Thai food: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and umami.

4. Shop based on inspiration and intrigue. Let fresh, seasonal ingredients guide you. Go to the farmer’s market or grocery store with an open mind and allow the produce to "speak" to you. Which plants want to go home with you? Talk to farmers, learn their names and stories, and get inspired. You can always google how to cook anything you end up coming home with!

5. Learn from recipes, then let them go. Use recipes as a guide but trust your instincts. Once you’ve absorbed the basics of a dish, try personalizing it or adapting it to what you have on hand. A tip that works great for me is to always read the “notes” or “swaps” sections of recipes as it helps build my own arsenal of alternatives I can use.

6. Practice presence. Taste as you go, adjust, and experiment. Treat cooking as a meditation—a moment to ground yourself in the present and enjoy the sensory experience.

7. Let your kitchen layout help you. Keep essentials like oils, spices, and knives accessible. Avoid overwhelming choices by organizing your space in a way that simplifies decision-making. We have a small kitchen and I intentionally keep a lot of things out on counters and accessible so that it’s easy for me to grab what I need. I also keep my pantry pretty lean in order to not be overwhelmed with choice when I’m cooking. The tools I use every day to chop nuts and garlic (mini-food processor), puree vegetables (Vitamix), shred kale (large food processor), etc are always out on the counter and never go in the cabinet. I have all my spices affixed to my fridge in magnetic holders so I can see them and grab them easily. I keep a lot of my key kitchen instruments in jars around the kitchen.

8. Use what you have and get creative! Challenge yourself to create meals with what’s already in your kitchen. This fosters creativity and reduces food waste. Trust me, with the thousands of meals you’ve eaten in your life, you have the smarts to come up with something creative! If I see a box of organic gluten free pasta in the pantry that catches my eye, start looking around the kitchen for other things you could cook up and potentially puree to make a sauce!

9. Pretty plates! I have found a TON of plates and bowls from various vintage and thrift stores, as well as gifts I’ve received and heirlooms, and put my food in them both on counters and in the fridge to make it more fun. This makes my kitchen more happy and delightful for me. I LOVE having a few heart shaped plates around, too.

10. Create a ritual. Play music, light a candle or two, and make the environment enjoyable. Get decent speakers in the kitchen so you can listen to music or a podcast or book while cooking. Add a dimmer to the light switch if you can so the mood is extra pleasant for you. Have comfortable chairs in the kitchen so others can sit with you and chat. Have some plants or fresh flowers on the counter!

11. Bless the food. We say a prayer of gratitude before each meal, and as I mentioned on my interview with Tucker Carlson, I bless the food when it gets home from the farmer’s market before I put it away. This helps me connect more to what the food really is: a gift from God to be alchemized into me so I can work to reach my highest purpose!

Life is busy, and all of this talk about slowing down in the kitchen might spark resistance. I totally get it. This is especially challenging when you might have caregiving responsibilities. But remember, life is not merely happening to us—we are active participants, making choices every day about how we spend our time and energy. Often, the overwhelm we feel is a result of choices rooted in conditioned expectations of our modern strange culture rather than our true desires for connection and calm. In a society shaped by capitalism, where productivity and efficiency are prized above all, we can fall into the trap of believing we must conform to rigid structures and endless to-do lists.

But what if we paused to ask ourselves what truly needs to flow through us in this lifetime? What if we chose, instead, to prioritize the activities that align with our values, nourish our spirits, and connect us to our deeper purpose?

It’s scary to do that - our culture has made us believe that this is both lazy, selfish, and negligent to do so, none of which I think could be further from the truth.

And, consider that the average American spends 2.5 hours on social media per day. Many of us actually do have the time but we’re numbing ourselves because what we really crave is connection and meaning.

Our time in the kitchen can help us cultivate both.

The invitation is that next time you step into your kitchen, let go of the rules. Use the time to connect with your intuition. Taste, experiment, and play. The process isn’t just about preparing meals—it’s about creating a life that’s vibrant, thoughtful, and deeply connected.

❤️ With good energy,

Dr. Casey Means

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