Tonight while I was making dinner, I was thinking about how I learned to cook. First at home with my mother. Her teaching me how to choose and measure ingredients. Carefully following the set recipe and ending up with an expected end result. It wasn't always the best meal, but it was good.
When I moved out of my parents house, I bought a few cookbooks, found some tried and true dishes. Again, usually a decent meal, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I came to the realization tonight, as I mixed up my Mexican burgers, that somewhere along the line, I stopped measuring everything and I just got a feel for taking some main ingredients and adjusting them to my tastes. As I mixed the ground turkey, chopped tomatoes, onion, jalapeno and cilantro, and added a little salt and pepper, chili powder, garlic powder and cumin, I was thinking about how much my cooking had improved by not following an exact recipe, but by a series of trial and error.
And that is when the analogy occurred to me. That this is kind of how we start out in life. Measured amounts of ingredients that someone has laid before us. It is not until we grow that we start adjusting the recipe. A dash of this, a pinch of that. Then adding things by the handful. And sometimes taking them away. Learning what works together and what doesn't.
You have some failures along the way but you also have many successes. Because there really is no set recipe for life. You start off with some basic well chosen ingredients. You add and subtract things as you go along. A little more spice, a little more sweetness. You try to keep bitterness out. You realize that you need a small dose of sour every now and then to appreciate all the other flavors. You learn to adjust all of the ingredients. And hopefully when it is all said and done, you finish with something worth savoring in the end.
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