How good are you at your hobbies?

Oh man, meditation barely covers it.

See, it's a full sensory activity. To do it right, you get sounds, sights, touch, smell, and via smell, hints of taste.

You're constantly maintaining an angle, and the scrape of metal on stone sings. You know the silly sound in movies when someone draws a sword, and it chimes a little after the initial zting of it pulling along the scabbard? That tzing-ping sound? Depending on the type of stone, you get that sound. But that sound is vibration, right? All sound is. So the metal is vibrating in your hand, this even, rhythmic song tingling into your hand and up your arm.

And you're zoned in, watching the angles, paying attention to how the edge is moving, which is even more interesting with a curved knife. It's a dance of sorts between your eyes and hands, like painting or juggling or giving a good massage.

And the smells of metal, that tang in the air combined with the acids from your fingers and sometimes the oils used as lubricant, it's electric. If you're using oil, there's that scent to, which can vary from a flat, machine shop smell, to something richer and more like a wood shop that's finishing a piece of furniture.

There's just you, your conscious mind fully engaged in the pursuit of a clean edge. You're moving your arm, your wrist, your waist, everything, down to your feet, sunk into the moment.

And then, as you progress through it all, you see and feel and hear the edge getting finer, sharper. The tone of the ringing of the steel changes as you get a finer edge, a smoother finish.

Even if you use water stones instead of oil stones, the song of the steel is still there, just dampened the way sounds are when you're underwater. While I miss the crisp song when I use water stones, there's a different kind of joy to that, hearing the slap of the water, the scraping of the slurry. It's like wheels on pavement on a drizzly day.

It's utterly, perfectly Zen. There is no self, there's just the moment, the process.

And then! Then, you reach the end, and you check the edge, you test it and all that magic is right there, shining and sharp. That pleasure of doing a task as perfect as you can, and it's useful. You can take this thing you did and make food, or carve art, or just open a box smoothly.

It doesn't even need fancy gear. Like, any whetstone can work because as you develop technique, you can adjust what you're doing. The final edge may not be as thin and keen, but it will still function as close to its limits at that kind of edge as it will with super high grit stones. You come out of it all with a tool that works, and it works well. It becomes a pleasure to use, if you enjoy the various things we can do with knives. But even if you don't, those tasks are easier, likely faster, so they don't take you away from thighs you do enjoy as much.

If you ever hear anyone talking about flow state, that's what it is, only I'm passionate about it lol.

Also, some practical notes. There's two basic types of whetstone, oil and water. They cut the steel slightly different, and there's little quirks of each, but as long as you don't use oil on water stones, you can get great results with either.

The term whetstone comes from the word whet, which is an archaic word for sharpening. When we whet our appetites with a round of knife sharpening, we sharpen our hunger.

If you ever decide you want to try sharpening for the joy of it, I suggest picking a fairly coarse stone, maybe 800 grit, definitely no higher than 100. Probably a water stone as they're a little less likely to slip around, so they're very forgiving.

Just get set up in a comfortable position and draw the knife from the heel, which is the end of the blade nearest the handle, to the tip, moving in the direction the blade narrows, from spine to edge.

Just go back and forth like that, one side, then the other. That's not necessarily the best technique to sharpen efficiently, but that's not what this exercise would be about, it's about experiencing the joy of sharpening, if that's something that's going to give you joy at all.

But you just go back and forth, one side then the other. Slowly, with just enough pressure to make a little noise. Let it sing to you, feel that vibration. If you don't start feeling relaxed and focused as it progresses, maybe it isn't something you can find joy and peace in, and that's okay, it doesn't mean anything, you aren't missing something. It just isn't your happy place.

But for me? Gods, it's therapy, it's mediation, it's a balm to my soul.

I have a YouTube channel, but I think it‘s ugly to promote it here 😁 And I post videos very rarely lately. But let’s see, what advice I can give you in a few words. I don’t know what is the level of your cooking, but always start with something simple that you enjoy eating. Find some recipes that you can trust and stick to them, watch some videos on how to do them so that you first understand them well, so that when you are in the fire of things, you don’t panic. Prepare all the ingredients in advance. I don’t, because I know where everything is and I am fast. But as a beginner it is ok to be slow. Once you mastered the recipe, you can start changing it if you like and see where it leads you. Never be disappointed that something did not turn out right, at least you learn something from that experience.

If you have friends that cook well, organise a cooking evening and let them use your kitchen. Look at how they do things and ask questions. I learned a lot from the women in my family when I was little. Always keep being curious and be willing to try things out.

When you taste something, even if you did not cook it, try to immerse yourself in the experience. Analyse if something tastes salty, sweet, sour, umami. Can you identify some of the ingredients? Give yourself the opportunity to diversify your palate, trying new things. From knowledge comes a sense of confidence in cooking, trusting your senses. When you cook for yourself, add salt little by little, until it tastes good. Ask yourself, is it lacking salt, or it needs some acidity to balance the sweetness or the other way around.

I play a lot with the balance of sweetness and acidity. And I don’t mean adding sugar, veggies are already sweet(onions, carrots, leeks, potatoes etc), slow cooked meat can also be a bit sweet. So many times I balance these things with something acidic: lemon juice, tomato, vinegar, tamarind paste, etc. If i have a tomato sauce that is too acidic I might add a tiny bit of sugar, or sautéed onions, etc.

If you are used to eating a lot of processed foods, you might need a break from all that. They usually add a lot of flavour enhancers, and eating natural foods might seem bland at first. But after that you will discover a world of variety.

Never met a Scotsman I suppose. A jobby is a completely different thing altogether.