On Recipes...
with apologies to Kahlil Gibran
Your recipes are not your recipes.
They are the signs and sigils of Food's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your tweaks but not your goals,
For they have their own goals.
You may house their results but not their ingredients,
For their ingredients dwell in the house of others,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to perfect them,
but seek not to make them your own.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with crediting.
You are the bows from which your recipes
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and she bends you with her might
that your recipes may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as she loves the cook that creates,
so she loves also the cook at every table.
