The Zen Of Slow Cooking

How Meg Barnhart’s quest to slow down a frantic world led to a unique business that’s all about helping people.

- Neil Zevnik

Let’s face it: we live in a hurry-up, give-it-to-me-right-now kind of world these days. From business to pleasure, at home or at work, quickness and convenience have become desirable commodities. The days of leisurely anything seem to have become relics of a rapidly disappearing and little-mourned past.

This is especially true in the realm of food. Gone are the days of carefully planned and executed family meals, afternoons spent in the kitchen presiding over bubbling and steaming pots and pans, and evenings taken up with long dinners filled with earnest and inviting conversation. “Fast food” has come to rule the countryside.

The People

Meg Barnhart was caught up in this breakneck world while raising three kids and working in hospitality and event management—and experiencing a bit of “mom guilt.” She remembered the dinners of her childhood, with her mother spending half the day preparing special offerings followed by candlelit meals that brought the family together