My grandmother never used a timer. She used her hands, the smell of the room, and a patience I mistook, for most of my childhood, for slowness.
What she was actually doing was refusing to rush anything that did not want to be rushed — dough that needed another twenty minutes to relax, a broth that would turn bitter if pushed past a simmer.
Some dishes are not slow because they take time. They are slow because rushing them changes what they are.
I still don't cook the way she did. But I've stopped setting timers for things that ask, instead, to be watched.
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