If the title of this week’s blogpost sounds familiar, I swiped it from Monty Python, who used it often on TV back in the day. But it fits, because today instead of talking about writing I want to talk about a different creative pursuit—cooking—although it’s one I’ve written many books about. I’ve written something like seven cookbooks and two books about cooking that aren’t actual recipe books. Most of these have been published by Roundtable and are available on GreatReads.buzz.
I think the reason I enjoy cooking is that it appeals to my creative side…although cooking is creative only if you aren’t a slave to recipes and don’t insist on following them exactly. In fact, one of my books, DEVELOP YOUR OWN RECIPES, talks about not just putting your own touch on existing recipes but creating your own recipes TOTALLY FROM SCRATCH. To me, that’s the real fun in cooking,
It’s almost as satisfying to the creative soul to cook as it is to write. Of course, writing is accomplished sitting down, which with my several medical issues is a blessing, whereas cooking requires standing up. This may explain, at least in part, why, given a choice, I’ll gravitate to my computer sooner than to my kitchen. But both appeal to the creative soul—and I do have a creative soul.
You don’t have to devise recipes from scratch to be creative, though. Take any of my cookbooks (or any recipe from anywhere) and add your own touch. Voilà! You have a new recipe—your own! Add an ingredient or two, or omit one, change quantities of ingredients—there are various changes you can make in tweaking a recipe.
Do you feel totally creative? Take a meat or vegetable or potato and do something new with it. Presto! You have your own recipe. Try it! Let me know how it goes!
And if you come up with enough new recipes to fill a book, you just might find you’ve written a cookbook. (See—you knew I’d get back to talking about writing in the end!)