Recipe for a Delicious Life: Discover the Perfect Blend of Food & Music to Stimulate

Chapter Three

Kitchen Harmonizing: Creating a Healthy Workplace

IN THE DAYS that followed I thought back on how things turned around in that Pula cave. Over time, I developed and refined a kitchen harmonizing practice that I found to really make a difference wherever I was working.

Explaining it to the Hollywood actress with the chaotic kitchen, she readily agreed to my harmonizing her space. Just like back in Pula, it made all the difference. After I harmonized, people were hanging out in her kitchen where before they never did. I was able to concentrate and work efficiently too. My client even signed a major recording contract shortly afterward. I can’t prove that harmonizing her kitchen contributed to that success, of course, but my gut feeling is that I gave her a real boost. That was certainly my intention.

Word started to get around. On another occasion, a major Hollywood dealmaker hired me to harmonize his kitchen. It had everything a cook could ever need, but it was just not inviting. After I went through my harmonizing practice, the atmosphere changed. The impact was so powerful that his wife started to cook, which she had never done before. You can imagine how happy he was about that.

This idea of bringing or restoring harmony to places may be new to some people, but it’s an old practice in many parts of the world. For example, feng shui has become well-known in the West, the ancient Chinese philosophy of bringing oneself and one’s space into alignment with the surrounding environment. Some people even believe in building and internally arranging their homes in ways that they feel are “in sync” with the world around them. Much of the architecture in Singapore is influenced by feng shui, to which some attribute its widely acknowledged peaceful spirit.

You may not have the luxury of deciding where and how you want your kitchen to be built, but you can work with what you have to make it a place of peace and nourishment. Whether you’re moving into a new home, or have simply done a lot of living in your existing home, harmonizing your kitchen can provide a fresh canvas on which you can create.

No doubt there is more than one way to harmonize a kitchen. The important thing is being aware of the energy in the room and how it can affect the food you prepare, then taking some steps to clear, purify, and balance the energy in your cooking environment.

…harmonizing your kitchen can provide a fresh canvas on which you can create.

It does not have to be complicated. These are the seven steps I follow to harmonize a kitchen.

Get Clear

The first thing is to have a clear vision for what you want in and from your kitchen. If you don’t know what you are aiming for, you won’t know when you have arrived, right? So what do you want for your kitchen? How do you want it to feel when you are there? What kind of effect do you want it to have on other people when they are there?

Sit in a quiet place where you can write down what comes to mind. You may come up with a clear description of what you have in mind, or simply a series of words, like welcoming, warm, comforting, creative, or nourishing.

Although I think it is important to do this without interruptions, that doesn’t mean not having input from others. If you have a partner or a family, you may want to hear from them about their thoughts on this shared space.

Get Clean

Making a fresh start requires a thorough cleaning out and cleaning up. Get rid of everything you don’t need. Being in a cluttered space can make you feel cluttered inside. Take time to look around at what you have and decide whether you need it.

Does your kitchen currently have an odds-and-ends drawer? Most do. It’s the place where everyone puts all the things they don’t know what else to do with—spare keys, tubes of superglue, foreign currency from that overseas trip you made, business cards, and many other random items.

Decide to deal with it. Go through everything there and find the right place for it, create the right place for it, or decide the right place for it is in the trash!

Imagine you will run a race, but you arrive at the start line with a bag of things you don’t need strapped to your back. That will slow you down a lot. Get rid of it and you will run much more quickly. Or think about going out for a hike. If you have mud on your boots when you get home, you will bring it inside unless you take them off or clean them well.

It’s the same thing in the kitchen. Not only will eliminating the junk help you feel more focused, you will discover that it’s easier to find the things you do need while you cook. This will make being there more restful and fulfilling, creating an upward circle of good energy.

Organizing expert Marie Kondo has written about how your living space affects your body in her New York Times best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The Japanese author who helps clients get rid of things they don’t need, to create a less cluttered home, observes that “when we reduce what we own and essentially ‘detox’ our house, it has a detox effect on our bodies as well.”

…find the right place for it, create the right place for it, or decide the right place for it is in the trash!

Part of the reason, she says, is because when we have less things there’s less dust and it’s easier for people to see what needs cleaning. In turn, with fewer things to have to worry about, she says, people also find more time to exercise and eat less junk food. “But I think the main reason tidying has this effect is because through this process people come to know contentment.”

When it comes to the kitchen, Kondo recommends keeping things stored away when they are not being used. “A counter is for preparing food, not storing things,” she says, pointing out that the counter space near the stove gets spattered with food and oil, making seasonings kept here “usually sticky with grease.” Items kept out on the counter make it harder to clean the kitchen well.

Don’t limit your cleaning to the things in your kitchen. Do the same with your food. Go through your fridge and pantry. Are there items past their sell-by date? Leftovers you haven’t gotten around to doing anything with? Throw them out. You’re creating physical and emotional space for more nourishing items.

As part of this cleaning, also be sure to clean up. Make a point of going over the areas you might typically overlook, like the parts of counters behind kitchen equipment, drawers, shelves, windows, and so on. In my experience, the most commonly neglected areas of the kitchen are the inside of the oven and the fridge, and the top of the fridge.

Do be sure to use biodegradable products in this whole process. Otherwise you’re going to get rid of old dirt and replace it with a fresh layer of toxicity.

Alter the Vibration

This whole harmonizing process is intended to shake things up in your kitchen, in a good way, and now you get to do that literally. Finish your cleaning by clearing out the energy cobwebs, as it were.

I like to use my drum to shake up the energy. If you don’t have one, you can also clap your hands loudly. Sustain your drumming, or clapping, for a good five minutes at least, and pay attention to the corners of the kitchen.

This may sound a little “out there” to some people who are not used to relating to energy on a physical level, but vibrations have an impact that we cannot always see. Sound waves are one example. Or think about what happens if you clap loudly near a spider’s web. You will see it vibrate and move. It is the same principle with kitchen harmonizing.

Many native cultures use drums in their rituals, because they know the rhythms have a physical impact on the environment. All physical matter vibrates, at different frequencies; we want to be sure the place where we prepare food for others “hums” well.

Preserve the Purification

Having cleaned thoroughly and drummed to “reset” the wavelength of the kitchen, I like to preserve the purifying effect. I do this in two ways. First, I take some salt and sprinkle it lightly in the corners of the room. Some different religious traditions incorporate the use of salt in rituals like house blessings. Salt is well-known for its preservative properties. It also has healing uses—some people find bathing in Epsom salts eases pain and reduces inflammation.

All physical matter vibrates, at different frequencies; we want to be sure the place where we prepare food for others “hums” well.

Second, I will ring a bell. I use one I brought back from a trip to Bali. There are many different kinds of bells out there. Find one with a tone that feels good to you, then ring away. While drumming has a hard aspect to it, shaking things up, ringing a bell is different. From schools to boxing rings, it’s used to mark the end of one period of time and the start of another. Ring one to signal a new season for your kitchen.

Light Up

Candles can purify and stimulate your kitchen on an ongoing basis. I suggest you always have candles in your kitchen when you cook. Fire has long been a symbol of energy and passion, two things you want to bring to your food preparation.

Combined with color, flame can be even more powerful. Plain white candles have a meditative quality to them—not something I’d recommend when you are cooking. But consider the way these different colors can enhance and enrich the atmosphere:

• Blue for peacefulness.

• Yellow for loving energy.

• Red for passion and physical activity.

Baroque and Roll

We all know how music can affect our mood and performance. I’ll talk more about this later, but for now think about how athletes listen to favorite tunes to pump themselves up before they compete. Lovers play romantic songs to enhance their intimacy. Worshipers turn to music to help them connect with the divine or express themselves. Filmmakers know that the right mood music can heighten the impact of a scene, from fear to great joy.

In the same way, music can set the tone for an elevated cooking experience in your newly harmonized kitchen. Baroque music—especially Bach’s organ pieces—is a personal favorite of mine. When I play it as I prepare a meal, people say they can taste heaven in my food.

…allow the music to flow through you into the food you prepare.

Experiment for yourself. Explore different kinds of music, taking time to find what resonates best with you. Then play your favorite music and allow the music to flow through you into the food you prepare.

When you are functioning at your peak, you are in the zone. Everything you touch will be at its best. As the music releases endorphins in your body it starts a reaction that will pass through you, through your hands, and into the food you touch. You will intensify the flavor and the nourishment you offer others through your “handprint.”

Plant Beauty

Finally, you should beautify your kitchen, so the environment fosters and encourages your love for others and your creativity. Introduce some cut flowers or green plants. These bring a sense of natural aliveness and freshness to the kitchen.

You can further accent the kitchen with nice art, or maybe an attractive window treatment. Make sure these are splashes of color and creativity that enhance the environment without becoming too distracting. You want them to add to the atmosphere you have created, not change it.

Treat my harmonizing outline like you would any recipe you may like. You will want to keep the main ingredients, but when you get a feel for what you’re doing, you may want to modify it according to your personal preferences, adding your own special zest. But these simple steps have helped me transform some extremely unappetizing cooking environments into what have become truly sacred spaces.

Make your kitchen your own sacred space too. Happy harmonizing!