Slower, Baby
The good stuff takes its time.
We weren’t buried in snow.
Not yet.
The mountain gave us enough. A few solid runs. By late afternoon our thighs were burning and all three of us had our sights set on a chair, a decent restaurant, something worth eating — and for me, something worth drinking.
Three nights in Whistler. Three meals with Andy and Mike.
And three times the same thing happened.
Andy finished first. He doesn’t drink — steady, grounded, chooses not to. When his plate’s clear, it’s clear.
Mike might have a beer one night, a glass of wine the next. Enjoys it. Clears his plate.
And I’d look down and realize I was barely halfway through.
They’d be sitting there with that slightly uncomfortable patience that comes when your plate’s been empty for a while but the company’s good and the day is still warm in your legs. I’d just smile, hold up my fork, and take another bite.
Sorry.
I eat slowly.
This is really good.
I don’t rush a meal I’ve been thinking about all day. And I don’t rush good wine. I like watching it change in the glass. The first sip is rarely the best sip. It opens. It shifts. It settles in. By the time I’m savoring the last few bites, they’re leaning back, done.
It happened the first night. Then the second. Then the third.
Same pattern.
And at some point across those three meals, both of them said some version of the same thing.
*”Yeah… I probably eat too fast.”*
I hadn’t said a word.
They noticed it on their own.
That matters.
Melissa — we’ve known each other twenty years — will tell you straight out she’s not really a foodie. Sometimes she’s finished before I’ve really started. We share plates. We laugh about it.
Different tempos.
And that’s fine.
But over the years — riding motorcycles through more than a hundred countries, sitting at tables with strangers who became friends — I’ve come to believe tempo shapes experience more than we admit.
The meal you rush is the meal you forget. The road you race through is the scenery you never see. The wine you quaff is just grape juice.
I left Whistler a day early. Andy and Mike stayed for another day on the mountain and one last supper together.
That night my phone buzzed — a text from Mike. A photo of beautifully plated lamb. Bone upright. Knife resting on the plate.
*”I am slowly and mindfully enjoying lamb at our hotel.”*
I laughed.
Not because Mike was eating slower. Because he noticed that he was.
I didn’t preach. I didn’t make it a thing. But something landed. Maybe it was the mountain. Maybe it was the company. Maybe three nights at a good table with nowhere else to be is enough to shift something.
That’s the thing about savoring. You don’t teach it. You don’t convince anyone. You just do it.
And sometimes it spreads.
Not everyone sees food that way. And I’ve learned not to push it.
Years ago, a Hall of Fame speaker and good friend invited me to lunch. We met at a chain restaurant. Not fast food — just efficient. The conversation was great. The food was beside the point, which was exactly his point.
“I eat for sustenance,” he told me. “It’s fuel.”
Fair enough. To each their own. But I told him, *next time I’m picking the place.*
Not because it needed to be fancy. But because for me, food has never been just intake. It’s culture. Craft. Geography. It’s the pause in the day where something can happen — if you let it.
Years later his daughter went into culinary arts. And something shifted. He didn’t suddenly become a foodie. He didn’t start debating olive oil regions. But he began asking questions. Paying attention. Tasting differently.
Not converted.
Opened.
And once someone you love shows you there’s more on the plate than you thought, you don’t quite go back.
There’s a song by J.J. Cale called Slower Baby that drifts into my head sometimes. It doesn’t shout. It barely raises its voice. Just that easy groove, almost a whisper.
*Slower, baby. Wind it down.*
And there’s a line in it that’s always stuck with me: *It’s the movement, not the meat.*
That’s the whole truth of it.
Not what’s on the plate.
Not what’s at the finish line.
It’s how you move through it.
It’s how I ride. It’s how I eat. It’s how the best nights unfold — slowly, without anyone checking the time, the conversation stretching between courses like a road you don’t want to end.
I’ve spent fifteen years on a motorcycle learning this in every time zone. The best days were never the ones where I covered the most ground. They were the ones where I stopped at the roadside stall I almost passed. Where I sat with a family who didn’t speak my language and shared whatever was in the pot. Where the ride itself was the point — not the destination.
Savoring is sensory. Sensual. Slow by nature, not because you’re trying to move slower, but because you’re finally paying attention. It lives in touch and taste and timing. The weight of the glass in your hand. The warmth of the wine as it hits your tongue, opens up, and lingers long after you swallow. The scrape of a fork against a plate. The aroma rising before the first bite. The low hum of a room settling into evening when no one’s in a hurry. Sight. Sound. Smell. Flavor. All of it arriving together. The pause before you swallow. The silence between stories. It’s how you hold a glass. How you lean in when someone’s speaking. How you let a night unfold instead of rushing through it.
It’s not about dragging things out. It’s about not leaving too soon.
There’s no prize for finishing first.
The good stuff takes its time.
Savor it.
Slower, baby.
