"WITHOUT A RECIPE"

“WITHOUT A RECIPE, WE RISK REMORSE”

A wise old man once said: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6). STRAIGHT PATHS! Who wouldn’t want that in life? Just how do you get life to straighten out? It seems that Solomon gave us a recipe, and recipes are important.
I LOVE TO COOK! Ever since I was a child I enjoyed learning how to make my own food. The older I got, the more I learned. There was a time in my life that I actually set my sights on becoming a chef.
For a long time, however, I didn’t think it manly to use a cookbook. That was just for those with less insight into the world of “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.” It was a one year old that finally taught me that my love of food and my craving for the zesty side of flavor was not for everyone.
While I was attending college full-time and working part-time at three jobs, my wife worked full-time. Quite often it was my responsibility to cook supper. I loved serving spaghetti. The sauce and meatballs were fun to make, and it was even more fun to watch our one-year-old son try to negotiate noodles and sauce from a bowl to his mouth. I looked forward to long sessions of Brandon covered from head to toe with Daddy’s seasoned sauce fit for “Luciano Pavarotti.”
One night when Susan arrived home from work, Brandon was in the high chair, and the floor was covered with paper (for protection from his wild child antics with “sabetti”). I dished him out a bowl full of fine nutrition, and he was off to the races. There were noodles stuck to his face and hair, and he had sauce in places that only a good bath could eliminate. Several minutes into his meal, long before we got a chance to sit down, he began to cry and say, “Hot, Daddy, hot.” I knew it couldn’t be too hot, but I touched it to my lips and said, “No, sweetheart, it’s not too hot. It has cooled long enough. You can go ahead and eat.” Susan and I sat down to eat our share of Italian fixens’, when he started again. “Hot, Daddy, hot.” I assured him that it was “O.K.,” that it was plenty cool, and he would be fine.
It was now Susan’s turn to dig into my concoction of sauce and spices. Her eyes began to water, face began to turn red, and suddenly she was backstroking her way out of this banquet gone blistering. “Stephen, this is incredibly hot. What did you put in this?” I responded, “Crushed red pepper, a little cayenne and some Frank’s Durkee’s Red Hot Sauce--but not much.” “Have you tasted it?” she asked. “Yeah, but it doesn’t seem hot to me.” At that point, Brandon had stopped his journey down the path of fiery food and was just saying, “Hot, Daddy, hot.” I then tried a heaping helping of my own hospitality. Let me tell you, this was some of the hottest stuff I had ever let pass my lips. It was not fit for a one year old to digest. In fact, this wasn’t fit for an “any year old” to eat. This was “steam city.” I learned something from that moment of culinary disaster. “When there is no recipe, you risk regret.” My “sabetti” went down the garbage disposal.
Recipes are essential when trying to avoid regret. Wise old Solomon gave us one that will never leave us saying, “Hot, Daddy, hot.” “Start with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, add trust in the Lord, avoid stewing too long in your own perspectives, stir daily by praying to God, and the end result will be a straight path.”