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the box and they started to play. They did not build. They played. One action figure was the daddy, one was the mommy and one was a kid. They would move the action figures around with their little hands and they would speak for those action figures. They would put them in cars and drive them around and then put them in the little house and play out little family dramas.Then they wanted another house and asked me to build it for them. I told them that they could build it themselves and they could build it as big as they want. There were more than enough Lego pieces. They could build whatever their imaginations could come up with.But no. They had no desire to build. They just wanted to play house with the action figures.Girls.I was sorely disappointed. I was hoping to spur their imagination. I wanted to see what they would build. But they simply had no interest in building anything. Now I am wondering who I will leave that big box of Legos to when I kick the bucket. It would obviously be wasted on my granddaughters.At this point you may be wondering what this has to do with cooking….Well, I am not just a Lego freak but I am also a cooking freak. I love to cook and have for many decades. Currently, I eat out at restaurants only two or three times a year (if that). 99.897 percent of all the food I eat is cooked by me personally. After all, you can take the money it costs to eat one meal in a restaurant and take it to the grocery store and buy enough food to make meals for an entire week. Right?But it is not just for the sake of thrift that I cook most all of my meals. It is because I love to cook!But a lot of people cook the same way they put Lego puzzles together. They gather the ingredients then follow the directions of some recipe in order to create a dish that looks just like the picture that came with the recipe.BORING!Over countless decades of cooking I have done this, too. After all, it is a great way to learn. But it does not in any way involve imagination. As with Lego puzzles, cooking this way is just a left-brained puzzle exercise.I have a shelf of cookbooks that I have collected over the years but I have not cracked a single one of them open in probably aroun

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d seven or eight years. They just sit on the shelf collecting dust. I wonder who I will leave them to when I go to the big kitchen in the sky.Instead of following recipes, I now prefer to just make things up. I prefer to use my imagination. Often I will go through the fridge and cabinets collecting ingredients that I am in the mood for. I will lay them out on the kitchen counter and stare at them. I will then scratch my beard (which helps to turn on the imagination) and I will imagine a dish that includes those ingredients. Then I will get out the pots and pans needed to bring that imagined meal into existence.Cooking is SO MUCH more fun this way! Sure, some of my creations turned out to be duds but a lot of them are fantastic. If one meal doesn’t hit the spot, hey, there’s another meal coming up. I like inventing and building with food. It is as much fun as building with Legos and the best part is that once you’ve built something you can eat it and then build something totally new again at the next meal.I love inventing new dishes. One of most successful inventions was something I call the Czechoslovakian Burrito. I’ll have to tell that story some day.Anyway, our culture conditions us to follow directions and follow recipes. If we want to prepare the best beef stroganoff for our dinner guests we just need to follow a recipe. If we want to be a writer we just have to follow the directions. If we want to build a house we just have to follow the blueprints. If we want to make music we follow the sheet music. If we want to become a billionaire we read and follow the endless supply of instructional articles.And if we can’t be bothered to follow directions and recipes then we simply go to a restaurant to buy the beef stroganoff that someone else made. We buy a house that someone else built. We turn on the radio instead of making our own music….We are conditioned to follow directions and recipes but we are not taught to utilize and nurture our imagination.That is the missing ingredient. Using that ingredient is when life really gets fun.Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. <a href="https://readmedium.com/white-feather-archive-index-c95167f7dbaf">White Feather Archive Index</a></article></body>

Cooking is Like Playing With Legos

And the magic ingredient is….

When I was a kid a hundred years ago I was a Lego freak. I could build things with Legos forever. Once I built something I would take a few minutes to admire it then I would take it all apart and build something new only to destroy it once it was completed in order to build something new. This would go on for countless hours and I only ever stopped because my parents would finally say, “Enough already! Put the Legos away.”

Way, way back then Legos had not yet become popular in America. Not every kid had even heard of them. My siblings and I had a large box of them that our grandfather had sent to us from Europe. Legos were a lot different back then.

Nowadays, when you buy a box of Legos there is a picture on the box and there are all the Lego pieces in the box, along with a diagram, to build what is in the picture on the box. It is essentially just a puzzle to be put together. All you need is a functioning left-half of a brain to put the puzzle together.

The big box of Legos we had so long ago came with no pictures and no diagrams; just a whole lot of random pieces. This forced us out of the puzzle-solving portion of our left-brains into our…. IMAGINATION.

We had to imagine something and then build it. Today’s Lego puzzle boxes do not do this. They do little to nurture imagination.

Before my mother kicked the bucket she gave me that big box of Legos which had been sitting in storage for a few decades. I was so thrilled to receive that.

A few years back I had my two granddaughters over. I cleared off a table and got out the box of Legos. With my arthritic knee I can’t sit on the floor without being in pain so our Lego fest was to take place on a table.

To my dismay I found out that the two girls had no interest whatsoever in building anything. I showed them how to put the blocks together and I built a little house as they watched. Then I built a couple of cars.

At this point the girls found some Lego action figures in the box and they started to play. They did not build. They played. One action figure was the daddy, one was the mommy and one was a kid. They would move the action figures around with their little hands and they would speak for those action figures. They would put them in cars and drive them around and then put them in the little house and play out little family dramas.

Then they wanted another house and asked me to build it for them. I told them that they could build it themselves and they could build it as big as they want. There were more than enough Lego pieces. They could build whatever their imaginations could come up with.

But no. They had no desire to build. They just wanted to play house with the action figures.

Girls.

I was sorely disappointed. I was hoping to spur their imagination. I wanted to see what they would build. But they simply had no interest in building anything. Now I am wondering who I will leave that big box of Legos to when I kick the bucket. It would obviously be wasted on my granddaughters.

At this point you may be wondering what this has to do with cooking….

Well, I am not just a Lego freak but I am also a cooking freak. I love to cook and have for many decades. Currently, I eat out at restaurants only two or three times a year (if that). 99.897 percent of all the food I eat is cooked by me personally. After all, you can take the money it costs to eat one meal in a restaurant and take it to the grocery store and buy enough food to make meals for an entire week. Right?

But it is not just for the sake of thrift that I cook most all of my meals. It is because I love to cook!

But a lot of people cook the same way they put Lego puzzles together. They gather the ingredients then follow the directions of some recipe in order to create a dish that looks just like the picture that came with the recipe.

BORING!

Over countless decades of cooking I have done this, too. After all, it is a great way to learn. But it does not in any way involve imagination. As with Lego puzzles, cooking this way is just a left-brained puzzle exercise.

I have a shelf of cookbooks that I have collected over the years but I have not cracked a single one of them open in probably around seven or eight years. They just sit on the shelf collecting dust. I wonder who I will leave them to when I go to the big kitchen in the sky.

Instead of following recipes, I now prefer to just make things up. I prefer to use my imagination. Often I will go through the fridge and cabinets collecting ingredients that I am in the mood for. I will lay them out on the kitchen counter and stare at them. I will then scratch my beard (which helps to turn on the imagination) and I will imagine a dish that includes those ingredients. Then I will get out the pots and pans needed to bring that imagined meal into existence.

Cooking is SO MUCH more fun this way! Sure, some of my creations turned out to be duds but a lot of them are fantastic. If one meal doesn’t hit the spot, hey, there’s another meal coming up. I like inventing and building with food. It is as much fun as building with Legos and the best part is that once you’ve built something you can eat it and then build something totally new again at the next meal.

I love inventing new dishes. One of most successful inventions was something I call the Czechoslovakian Burrito. I’ll have to tell that story some day.

Anyway, our culture conditions us to follow directions and follow recipes. If we want to prepare the best beef stroganoff for our dinner guests we just need to follow a recipe. If we want to be a writer we just have to follow the directions. If we want to build a house we just have to follow the blueprints. If we want to make music we follow the sheet music. If we want to become a billionaire we read and follow the endless supply of instructional articles.

And if we can’t be bothered to follow directions and recipes then we simply go to a restaurant to buy the beef stroganoff that someone else made. We buy a house that someone else built. We turn on the radio instead of making our own music….

We are conditioned to follow directions and recipes but we are not taught to utilize and nurture our imagination.

That is the missing ingredient. Using that ingredient is when life really gets fun.