You know...I was thinking today about all of the things I've done in my life where I have excelled. I'm one to follow my interests, and there's one ingredient that has taken my interests to great heights. That ingredient is passion.
I've had many interests in my life. Cooking, karate, gardening, decorating, bagpipes and business have been just a few. I've accomplished quite a bit in each and every one of these pursuits as well. But, I realized today during a moment of introspection that although these interests are all very different in nature, I approached them all in the same way. I approached them all with great passion.
Passion is what drives us forward and makes us take hold of something and wring from it all that we can possibly get. Passion makes us want to consume something and take it in so deeply that we make it our own. Passion makes us want to know something intimately.
Without passion, music is nothing more than simple mathematics; just a bunch of notes played rhythmically in time without any emotional involvement. Without passion, art is nothing more than copying, stroke for stroke, what the eye sees just as it sees it. Without passion, dance is nothing more than patterned movements in time. And without passion...cooking is mere sustenance.
I think I could probably live on boiled potatoes and water. Maybe a few other boiled vegetables would ensure complete dietary health, but I think I could live on a steady diet of simple and uninteresting food. But I ask you...where's the flavor? Where's the snap? Where's the pop?
I like to approach cooking with as much passion as I can for two reasons. First of all, I just have it in me. I love cooking. I don't think you can substitute genuine interest for one which requires effort. It simply must exist. Second, I love to feed people and blow them away with my cuisine. It pleases me to see someone's face light up because of something I have made for them. Watching someone take the first taste of something I have cooked is sort of an exchange for me. It's intimate.
Food is my paint and the plate is my canvas. Food is my instrument. Food is my dancing partner. And it is with real passion that I paint my picture, play my instrument or twirl my lady on the floor. Anything less would be...Kraft Dinner!
Life is one big passion play in my opinion, and although not everything in our lives reaches us on our most passionate level, we must try to have even one thing in our lives which we can embrace closely and make it a true love. We must have something to take us to that place where nobody else can go and where nothing else can take us. I'm lucky because I have more than one interest now and I have had many in the past.
Remember, we must be true to ourselves before we can be true to others. That's not a selfish motto.
Cheers!
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