Sourdough Cornetti Laminated with Pumpkin-Spiced Butter

Hi, I’m Jerrelle, the writer behind The Dinner Ritual, a space where you’re invited to reconnect with your highest Self. I’m here to help you take back your time, your sovereignty, your body and mind—especially if any of these parts felt lost or siphoned during the day. Through the act (and art) of cooking, we transform ordinary moments into sacred pauses, opportunities to ground into the body, tend to our mental health, and return to our innate, God-given sense of joy. Subscribe to join the mission and receive recipes, meditations, and healing rituals that will help you reclaim your passion for life and your well-being, one step at a time.

(I promise this is my last pumpkin recipe of the year.)

In the food world there is mise en place.
In the film world there is mise en scène.

I’m starting to think of the corners of my home the same way I think of art. The flat living room wall stamped with the pattern of backlit blinds. Shadows caught in the folds of a carefully rumpled throw. The sun skimming across a bowl of citrus towering on the kitchen island. These moments become tiny still lifes in my mind, as if I’m living inside a collection of Monet paintings. Every corner and fragment amassing into a gallery I get to wander through and linger in like a quiet meditation.

The backdrops we curate for our daily lives matters more than we know, and in each passing frame we have a choice. We can leave things as they are, letting the familiar, unconsidered and overlooked objects run in the background of our days, unaware of their imprint and effect, or we can pause and ask: If I were expressing life from my highest self, how would I curate or rearrange this scene?

In film they call this mise en scène, or “putting on the stage.” Every prop choice shapes the tone and mood of the story, but more importantly, it shapes the character’s behavior and lifestyle. On a subliminal level, it even influences what we begin to expect of them.