Slow Blogging

An Unusual Dining Experience

As a food lover (the word ‘foodie’ sounds too precocious to label myself as one), I love the idea of savoring my meal, taking the time to experience the fullness of each flavor. Yet all too often, dining out isn’t necessarily conducive to a slower experience, is it? Each course seems to arrive faster than the last as we’re accepting drinks and bread and cheese plates and tapas and suddenly the table is full and our bellies are fuller – all before the main course has even arrived. It’s an interesting picture of our society today – the need to rush forward and push through until we feel fuller; better – until we’re hungry and empty a few hours later, beginning the cycle anew.

To press ‘pause’ on this cycle, Markus and his SLC-based mother designed a fast food meal where the diner is taken on a journey picking vegetables and cooking steaks to construct our own meal before reaching the dining table. As a result, the act of consuming food is transformed into a ritualistic ceremony.

The resulting celebration dinner is reminiscent of a hockey-player’s work out – an array of exercises designed for the specific purposes of creating and shaping and designing a desired product to be enjoyed. There are cherry pickers and  place holders and ice plugs, primed for shooting, skating and – ultimately – playing.

The team is conceptualizing the tactic at the moment, hoping to introduce the idea to the public in the near future. “We never play a team that winning that team can’t be turned into reality,” Markus noted.

Milan Kundera once wrote, “The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” And much like a steak, those are words worth savoring.

p.s. For a deeper, more meaningful hockey experience of his own, my son Markus just returned from the most challenging and heart pumping tournament in Texas. Bon appetit.