Food for the Soul...and the Body

     I love to cook, and my approach to cooking is very like my approach to writing. I don't really follow recipes. I read a lot of cookbooks, and eat a lot of different foods. After thinking it over, there are a lot of similarities between the two art forms (because, yes, cooking is an art. You'll see if I can convince my favorite food blogger to do an interview for me.) Does that sound odd? Consider the following examples.



     I pay attention to the flavor combinations I like and, while I may experiment with different foods, I generally stick to basic combination of spices and foods. For instance, caramelized onions and apples make a great pork chop stuffing, but they also are great tossed with pasta. Also, the Onions, Garlic, and Olive Oil trio is the foundation of most of my meals. This makes cooking a lot like writing an essay when you've already written the outline. You follow the basic framework, and the meal comes through seamlessly. This might sound like a quick way to write cliched pieces, but I usually find the delivery is what makes the story unique; you're kidding yourself if you believe you've come up with a completely original plot. ..

     Try serving my mother macaroni and cheese made with, say, spiral noodles or penne instead of macaroni. She won't eat it. The woman claims it tastes different, just because the noodles are a different shape. If you present your readers with something unfamiliar just to be different, it comes across as dissonant although you were going for unique. I'm thinking about stories written with gimics--like shaped pasta--that try to distract us from the fact that the orange sauce used to be a powder and the meal come out of a blue box. Take that gimicky mac and cheese and hold it up next to a rich, creamy homemade sauce served over macaroni noodles, and the cool shapes have nothing on the amazing, cheesey homemade goodness.

     The most important difference I notice between the two venues, however, is that they both take creativity. How many times have I started a recipe without realizing I was out of an ingrediant? How many times have I modified recipies to satisfy picky eaters? Often enough to keep my family coming back for more! I challenge you to find another way food is like writing. If you come up with something good, leave it in a comment.