What Making Stock Teaches About Slow Transformation (Perfect for New Year Reflection)

There's something about watching stock simmer - the slow, quiet transformation that can't be rushed.

After 30 years teaching cooking to 50,000+ students, I've learned that the best lessons come from the slowest processes. 

I send stories like this twice a month. Subscribe to get them in your inbox.

Making stock is a metaphor for growth: transformation happens slowly, in its own time, and forcing the process only diminishes the result.

As I stand in my kitchen watching a pot of stock slowly simmer, I'm reminded of how different things look when we give them time to develop. What started as simple vegetables and water transforms into something rich and complex, each ingredient lending its essence to create something greater than its parts.

It feels fitting to think about this as we approach the New Year. So often, we rush into January with a list of resolutions, eager for immediate transformation. But what if, like a good stock, we allowed ourselves to simmer? To let our intentions, dreams, and growth develop slowly, extracting the richness from each experience?

In cooking, we know that you can't rush a good stock - turn up the heat too high, and it becomes cloudy, bitter. The same holds true in life. Sometimes the most meaningful changes happen not in the rolling boil of immediate action, but in the gentle simmer of patient transformation.

I've been thinking about how often we (I definitely mean ME) try to rush our process - whether it's healing, learning, or growing. But nature shows us again and again that some things simply can't be hurried. The most nourishing transformations often happen slowly, almost imperceptibly, until one day we realize how far we've come.

As we simmer through the final days of the year, I invite you to think about what you’re allowing to develop in your life. What richness are you slowly creating?

---

Not on my newsletter list yet? I send stories like this twice a month- lessons on curiosity, conversations and connection. Subscribe to get them in your inbox.