A thought or two on MasterChef Finale. And life friction.

Today I’m off to Hamilton Island to MC the Great Barrier Feast at Qualia, featuring Justin North from Becasse (we first met on MasterChef) and food writer Simon Thompsen (also done a cameo on MasterChef). I’ll try to post some tweets about the best flavour combinations. Follow me here. I keep getting asked if I’m watching the finale of MC. Well, rather fittingly I’ll be away for the finale of series two. Eating.

A year ago I was sitting in a pub with friends watching the finale, with me up there on the screen with the boys…and Justin North! Can I say this now? It’s been a year. I didn’t so much enjoy the experience. The whole “hosting” gig. It felt like I was a square peg shoved in a round hole, being pushed against the grain of my being.

When this happens in life – as it does from time to time, to test me – it leaves me in quite the state of friction. Being rubbed the wrong way is not good. I get irritated. Eventually I surge forward into action and find a path with a smoother surface.

Dumb Little Man posted a list of the 7 Reasons Why You’re Time Poor this week. I don’t always read these kind of things – I’m too time poor – but this jumped out as one of the reasons:

#3 You Have Too Much Life Friction

Life friction. Not good. It literally holds you back like Velcro.

Other life friction is catching a bus that goes a route to work that makes no sense. Find another route. Continuing to work with a client who does your head in and really doesn’t pay the bills big time. Drop them. Going to a gym which is on the other side of town because you haven’t got around to cancelling your membership. Switch. Wearing shoes that hurt your feet. Donate them.

I’ve tried just about every form of meditation. None of them really stuck. I used to get stupendously tense meditating, often reduced to tears…that’s how much they failed to “stick”. About two years ago I tried TM, sometimes called vedic meditation. I’ve said this before: when I get three reminders of something, I strike. That is, if three people mention the same thing to me, out of the blue, then I know I need to take note. And act. Which is what happened with TM.

Meditation: finding the space between sensations

When the third person mentioned TM teacher Tim Brown to me, I signed up. I was down the beach at 5am, having not slept at all, distraught and lost. I was going through a grey time in my life. A random guy called Tom who I recognised from yoga came up to me, gave me a hug and said, “You’re in a tough place”. We met for tea that night and Tom talked up TM and Tim.

I find meditation is generally presented to people in this way. Perhaps this post will be what touches you, it will be your third strike?

TM very literally Changed. My. Life. Tim promised it would. I was skeptical. But six weeks after I started, I landed the MasterChef gig. I meditated in the car outside before going in for my audition. The casting team said my certainty and poise got me the job.

There you go.

The TM deal in a few dot-points:

* TM works like this: you sit in a chair (no need for crossed legs) with your eyes shut for 20 minutes, twice a day. You repeat a mantra in your head that your teacher gives you over and over. You repeat it gently – you don’t “shout it”.

* If your mind wanders, you gently steer it back to the mantra. Always back to the mantra. That’s all you have to do. The mantra is designed to do the rest. It “drags” your consciousness down, down, down. The teacher chooses a mantra with a vibration that suits you.

* I meditate after exercise in the morning (my body is more open, which helps go deep), often down at the beach in the morning sun. At night I do it before I go out/have dinner. It’s great to shower first because when you meditate you produce an oil on your face which is REALLY good for your skin and has been shown to make you look younger….

Do you have a soft voice? What I mean is, do you have a secondary voice – not the loud, chattery one that natters away in your head most of the day – but another quieter, gentler voice that pipes up just when you need it to? You hear it when you listen for it.

I do. It gets a bit drowned out most of the time. I’m a very abrupt person – I barge around, mostly, and wonder why there’s so much chaos in my life. And am often too busy to hear my quiet voice. And yet I crave a quieter, stiller way.

The louder, more bombastic voice gets priority because it seems more urgent, more “right”. It’s the voice that’s been rewarded over the years. I’ve fed it with attention. Like laughing at show-offs.

It’s taken years to realise the loud voice really has no idea what it’s on about. It wings it. The quieter voice has the answers. She just doesn’t need to shout.

You eaten quinoa yet? The high-energy, gluten-free grain that everyone’s talking about right now? The stuff is unreal, beyond healthy and is a happy food at this time of year when our bodies need lots of protein and warm comforting textures. Consider this a bit of a cheat sheet on how to cook and eat it:

* For starters, pronounce it right: KEEN-wah. You can get it everywhere now…health food shops, Coles etc.

* DUK? Quinoa has the highest nutritional profile and cooks the fastest of all grains. It is an extremely high-energy grain and comes from South America.  It contains all eight amino acids to make it a complete protein and has a protein content equal to milk, and is super high in B vitamins, iron, zinc, potassium, calcium & vitamin E. It’s gluten-free; easy to digest

* When quinoa is cooked, the outer germ surrounding the seed breaks open to form a crunchy coil while the inner
grain becomes soft and translucent. So it has this double texture, which is fun.

To Cook the Stuff

* VERY IMPORTANT: before cooking, quinoa must be rinsed to remove the toxic (but naturally occurring) bitter coating, called
saponin. Saponin, when removed from quinoa, produces a soapy solution in water.

In my bumpy journey to find what makes life better, I’ve found this works: watching Ted.com every now and then. I subscribe to their newsletter and save the ones I like. There is so much cheap opining out there; to watch people who actually know their shit humbly share their findings, is refreshing. I mention the site in my Sunday Life column this week and have had stacks of people ask me about it. I thought it best to explain the gist with a little list of some of my favourites.

1. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

This week I talk deep

Remember the 90s? Ah, yes, they were such earnest, toe-gazing, reflective times. Folk would Quick Unpick the Nike logos off their sportswear (making branded statements was so tawdry), and debate whether you could wear lipstick and still be regarded a feminist.

Gosh, we cared back then!

In the 90s we’d have D & Ms. Which are not the same as DMs. Indeed the latter (a 140-charcters-or-less “direct message” on Twitter) is the antithesis of the former. Which, for those who weren’t there for the fun, stood for “deep and meaningfuls”, referring to the kind of conversations we liked to have. We’d also say “deep”, as kids today might say “fetch” or “amazeballs” or “hectic”.

Deep was good. Deep had currency.

So you can probably guess where all this is heading. As a paid up Gen Xer, I take great delight in signs that we might be harking back to “my day”. Or that the way we used to do things, I’ll have you know, was better. So of course I’m going to share with you news that deep is back.