Adventures in Recipes...

Faith, my youngest child, loves to help me in the kitchen. After we gather ingredients for a recipe, I then read the directions out loud to Faith and we commence the building of whatever food item that is on the agenda, be it soup or cookies, et cetera. One afternoon, we were in the process of trying out a new chili recipe and I was, of course, reading the instructions out loud. This particular recipe read, "Toss until all ingredients are intimately mingled." What?!? I may not be the connoisseur of cookbook instructions (though I have read several cookbooks cover to cover), I have never come across that particular phrase in cooking! How romantic! If one thought of one's food as being "intimately mingled", would not one enjoy their food just that much more? It reminds me of that movie about the lady who makes a meal for her extended family while she is extremely upset and the whole family begins to weep before the end of the first course! I love that scene! To me, it is a reminder of how one person in a home can influence all of the others without ever realizing it. Also, I think that from now on, when someone asks me for a recipe, they may find that I have somewhat altered the instructions of a recipe to reflect a recipe that is more than just a preparation of food, but an exercise in what exactly goes into the recipe besides the physical ingredients. When I ate that chili this week, I thought of how the ingredients were "intimately mingled" as if a chili could be full of passion or romance-or both! Could that extend to our moods? hmmm...