I decided to bring Cinnamon Beef soup to a friends house for their Super Bowl party.

This weekend I put my favorite large La Creusat Blue Dutch Oven on the stove and heated the oil. Then Istarted with the aromatics: ginger, garlic, cinnamon, and star anise.

Within moments the kitchen smelled amazing.

I added the beef, water, and soy sauce and simmered for a couple of hours.

I picked out the aromatics and added spinach and noodles and simmered for another half hour.

I let the soup cool a bit and then set out a couple of plastic containers I was going to store the soup in.

I lifted the big ceramic lined pot and turned to pour into the first container.

The soup was sloshing all over the inside of the big blue pot.

Physics.

In my younger days I would have poured anyway. If some of the soup spilled, I would have glared at it and cleaned it up.

Now I paused.

There it is - my first word of the year - "Pause".

I paused and the soup settled and then I poured half of it into the first container.

I stopped for a moment and turned to the second container.

The soup that was left in the blue pot was sloshing back and forth from being poured and then stopped.

I paused and the soup settled.

This pause to let things settle is a real tangible thing in the kitchen but it's also a real tangible thing in other aspects of life.

Pause.