Tea Towel Cooking

Tea towels designed to acknowledge the therapeutic nature of cooking and cleaning. Designs available:Cleaning as Therapy - White with blue stripeCooking as Therapy - White with orange stripeOn Cleaning as Therapy:Cleaning might seem like drudgery at first glance, but in fact it has the potential to be calming, therapeutic, even an act of service. Following a meal, we clean up after the cook, thanking and showing appreciation for our spouse, our grandmother, or our host. They’ve thoughtfully guessed what we needed, and now we in turn strive to make their lives just a bit easier and more pleasant.While cleaning, we might think about what else in our lives needs to be put in order. Who do we need to apologise to, and appreciate more? Or we might reflect on the painful, offensive aspects of the day, and then let them go a little. We’re scrubbing some build-up off our souls as well as our stovetop. This process allows new, and potentially more creative, thoughts to spring to mind. Perhaps we’ll come up with a new idea for work, or a novel we’d like to write, or where to go on holiday this year. It’s rare that we have thirty undisturbed minutes to think. Yet in a busy world, it’s the seemingly mindless tasks that – perhaps ironically – provide us with the time to mull over the strange or abstract ideas that we dismiss during busier times of the day.White tea towel with Blue or Orange Stripe | 100% Cotton | 73cm x 53cmOn Cooking as Therapy:Cooking might seem like a dreadful chore. But carefully attended to, it is perhaps one of the most therapeutic things we can do daily. We cook food for far more than physical fuel; it always carries a mood, a message, even a philosophy. We make spicy curry when we have a dull day at work. We remind ourselves to simplify by grilling up some fish, dressed with only a lemon. We use soup to heal when we are sick (in body or soul). Special foods connect us to old memories and previous selves.Preparing the meal is meditative. While chopping vegetables, we must focus intently on one thing alone. The house becomes filled with warmth, the smell of the oven, the sound of the boiling broth. We appreciate how much small, inexpensive things like fresh apples or browning butter contribute to our happiness.Most of all, we usually cook for others, and this act is one of the simplest, yet most profound expressions of love. It reminds us who is really important, who we should more closely attend to. In this way, cooking offers us something profound: it provides us with the ritual we forget we need now that religion has declined. Food regularly gathers us together with the people that matter, it marks the changes of the seasons, it helps us conjure up and share emotions. We need to find ways to replace the religiously choreographed meals (Christian bread and wine, Jewish lamb shank and horseradish, Buddhist tea) with new ritual foods, to help us regularly order and nurture our lives, minds and relationships.White with Orange Stripe | 100% Cotton | 73cm x 53cm