The Transformative Power of Cooking in Different Contexts

Today is the 4^th of July and it is raining, so not exactly the best weather conditions for barbecuing. This really isn’t going to be about cooking food, though.  The act of frying, sautéing, baking or grilling food is transformative in a sense – causing a variety of chemical processes including oxidation, crosslinking of proteins, emulsification and carmelization.  By cooking certain foods, they are transformed into something more edible and palatable.  However, “cooking” is a term that has come up for me recently in several different contexts, totally unrelated to food.  In the first episode of the fifth season of the new Doctor Who series, “The Eleventh Hour”, the soon to be companion, Amelia Pond asks The Doctor, “Who are you?” to which he replies “I don't know yet. I'm still cooking. Does it scare you?”  By “cooking”, The Doctor was referring to the fact that he was still regenerating into his next incarnation as the eleventh doctor.  So, “cooking” isn’t only for food it seems, but is also being used to refer to other sorts of transformative processes.

Lately I’ve had some personal experiences with the transformative power of cooking in alternative contexts.  Those who know me well, know that I am a bit of a Doctor Who fanatic, and am in the process of re-watching all of the episodes of the new series with my son whenever he’s home from college.  But no, I’m not imagining myself regenerating into an entirely different person or anything like that, although I’d like to think that there’s some cartilage regeneration going on in my bad knee thanks to acupuncture.  Instead, much to my delight, I recently discovered that some acupuncturists use the term “cooking” to describe the process the patient is undergoing during a session.  For instance, I’ve had my acupuncturist come over and say “Would you like to cook some more?”  For some reason, the use of the term in that context seems entirely fitting and it led me to thinking about the deeper meaning of certain things.  In this sense, all of the “cooking” I’ve been doing during my acupuncture sessions has initiated and is now sustaining a really positive transformation within different realms of my life, both physical and spiritual.  Not only are my knee and stiff finger much better, but in addition, a difficult professional relationship I have had for a while now has recently taken a dramatic turn for the better.  I was quite amazed by that. 

There are other examples of how transformative acupuncture has been in my life and I am sure I will write about more of these in time.  Just the fact that I am writing about them at all is another step in the right direction for me.  But one of the most powerful things about this is the realization that while it all starts with me, it certainly doesn’t end with me.  It’s almost like a domino or chain reaction effect – where the positivity I feel, in turn brings about positive change in those I interact with.  I am seeing for myself how dedication to self-improvement through things like exercise, acupuncture and other modalities is transforming my life and affecting the lives of those around me in ways I could not have imagined.