Beyond the recipe

Daily writing promptWrite about your most epic baking or cooking fail.View all responses

When I try to follow a recipe, I get nervous because I feel like I’ve got to be 100% accurate with all the measurements. Then I get frustrated, and what comes out of the oven or off the stove is usually bad. It’s hard to say which cooking flop was my “most epic” failure. (It was probably when I tried to cook spaghetti sauce in a pan with no led on it and it splattered all over the wall and the ceiling.)

I’m not big on precisely measuring the things I say and do. I’m more of a spontaneous, go with the flow guy, than an adhere-to-a-method-man, so my attempts to cook by an instruction book usually don’t look like the pictures in the book (or taste like the descriptions of the dishes). Thus, I’ve never been that motivated to cook or bake.

My wife recently bought an air frier. She also bought a cookbook for it. I’ve intentionally ignored the book but experimented with the air frier. I throw something into it, push a few buttons, and then closely monitor what happens. When it looks done, I take it out and taste and see how it’s doing. I’ve been amazed at how good things taste when I do that.

That’s also my approach to life. I’m not good at following an instruction sheet or book. I prefer to follow my hunches and to see what works. If I get stuck, I like to ask someone for help.

I grew up with a misconception. I believed that the Bible was a recipe book for life, full of instructions that needed to be precisely followed. It made me nervous to try to read it, so I avoided it. Then one day I asked Jesus for help and my heart was full of joyful insight. I began to read the Bible with an open heart and discovered that it is a love letter from Jesus, not a law book to rule me in. Now I read it every day with delight and the love I receive through it guides me in Christ-led spontaneity.

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