Now with flavor!

Ah the joys of cooking! The smells, the tastes, the satisfaction of taking a combination of ingredients, each of which may be dull and bland on its own, and creating with them a masterpiece which can evoke great satisfaction and joy.

Despite cooking being considered womens' turf, I have found that I enjoy cooking. I seem to have a special affinity for desserts, which has led to me being described as "domesticated" by members of the opposite sex. If you, as a reader, cannot handle that sort of description for yourself and feel emasculated by that, you're welcome to stop here, but I have a different view.

Now, before I continue, I'll lay a foundation. I am a Christian guy who is one year out of college. This blog will not be all about cooking, however I may post particularly good recipes that I find from time to time. Most posts will be somewhat random ranging from religious or political discussion to how to set use the Model-View-Presenter design pattern in .NET (if you don't know what that is, don't worry. It won't be on the test).

Now, since I was young, both of my parents have cooked. Sometimes my mom's food was better and sometimes it was my dad who prepared the better meal. Since I am relatively frugal and I don't want to eat Chef Boyardee or cereal for every meal, I decided it would be in my best interest to learn to cook. But whatever the meal, you can bet there was a recipe involved.

To me, cooking is a science. Really, cooking can be described as a series of chemical reactions between the various ingredients in order that some expected result is achieved. Much like chemistry class, if you follow the right steps at the right time, you will get the expected result. Improvisation can, at times, be beneficial or it may be harmful. Add a different ingredient or perform a different step and you may end up with an unexpected result which may be better. Or you may end up with something is so vile which you could use it for a pesticide on your garden.

As I began cooking over the past few months, I have learned something. While cooking is useful for providing sustenance, one can draw a parallel between how a Christian ought to live and cooking. Some of you may be familiar with the Bible, which I have heard described as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. In my opinion, that sounds a lot like a recipe for life. Now, I'm not talking about a legalistic view of Christianity. It is not merely enough to just follow the recipe. Like with cooking, there is something missing from a Christianity in which just following the rules gets the expected result.

Even with the ingredients and the correct mixture, a little bit of love and patience are needed to truly experience the full potential of cooking. Without patience, you will try to rush cooking and that can yield unfavorable results. For example, if you decide to turn up the heat to make a cake bake quicker, it may become dry and burned on the outside, while the inside may be doughy and not baked (which is dangerous if you used eggs, by the way). In the same way, trying to rush God's plans for our lives by taking our lives in our own hands will only get us burned. Deciding to live your life according to your own way instead of God's way is only a recipe for disaster.

I am not yet confident in my abilities that I can come up with my own recipes, but I hope I may be able to do that some day. Most of my cooking is done with recipes from others who have used them and have seen the results. In other words, I trust the recipes of those who have experience. As a fallen human, I try not to trust in my own abilities to take my life in the right direction. Instead, I try to trust in God's experience and His plans for my life. And I am confident that His plans form a recipe which will yield a truly amazing result which I could never experience on my own.