Buckwheat, pickled beet and haloumi salad: journey to wellness

I love the combination of flavour and texture in this salad. The hot pink tahini dressing makes it sing. Serves 4 as a main or a mob as a side dish

Pickled Beetroot

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Buckwheat Salad

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Pickled Beetroot dressing

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Enjoy x

Journey to wellness

The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.
Bob Marley.

A light ocean breeze wafts in as though Mama Nature is baking. I am listening to the sound of a butcher bird staking his claim. He sounds like a genius violinist playing what is really in his heart, underwater. This is life in the slow lane. My slow lane is a meandering dirt track that wriggles its way to the Indian Ocean. A caravan we call home squats where the dirt meets the sand. Life is simple here. The days drip like honey from a spoon.

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I have been craving slowness for a long time. I have always loved the concept of slow. Carlo Petrini started the slow food movement in 1986. For him it was a protest against McDonald’s setting up their oil vats in his beloved city Rome. He asked, almost jokingly, if we can have fast food why not slow food. A movement was born. Slow food led to other sub cultures. Slow design and slow living paved the way for slow blogging, a practice of quality over quantity. As Mae West famously said if anything is worth doing it is worth doing slowly. Anything quoted by West alludes to sex, but she is so right. Anything worth doing, be it gardening, sex, making a cup of tea or creating a beautiful life, is worth doing slowly and with purpose. Doing things slowly does not mean going through your routines like Marcel Marceau. It just means finding the right pace for things. In his book In praise for the slow movement Carl Honore describes slowness this way

“It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting”.

I think I am slowly getting the hang of slow living. I have always been good at relaxing, travelling and taking time out but I think modern life encourages us to run our lives at two speeds. Stop and go. I am learning to bring more mindfulness to the go parts. In so many ways the slow movement was a precursor to mindfulness. It really is the same thing; Being present in all that we do. Bringing awareness to our daily lives rather than mindlessly ticking off the to do list, which can lead us to a sense of disconnect and a life that is emotionally akimbo.

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Doing things slowly or at the right pace forces us to engage and be present. Beach life is by its very nature syrupy slow and honey sweet but I catch myself racing through things all the time. I often rush through the passionless moments of domesticity so I can get a few hours at the easel. I find myself running in the sand and planning every tiny moment of my day. This is not slow, mindful or present.

The practice of slow living is just that, a practice. With practice we become masters and the slow movement is one I truly to wish to master. I want my life to be lived on the exhale.

Illness is often a one way from our bodies asking us to slow down. I am grateful that I am learning to be slow and mindful while my body is well. I have treated it rather shabbily over the years and I am amazed at its capacity for forgiveness. My personal journey to wellness began with sobriety. I felt as though I was turning up for my own life and the journey continues to surprise and delight me. My life is not perfect but I feel perfectly in tune with it. I am present for the big chaos and messes in life and I am present for the tiny miracles in the every day.

I am slowly learning the art of slowness. I stopped racing and won the race.I slowed down and smelt the roses. The air is so very sweet.