Why Love is Like Cooking

Maya Angelou said Cooking is like writing poetry, be careful in the choice your ingredients and respectful of how they work together. That’s true of all the efforts in life. Cooking is like love.

Every now and then I get an itch to try to make something that sounds exotic and delectable and difficult, only to learn that it’s not nearly as tricky to make as I’d thought and so then I exercise less caution only to come to the stark realisation that it takes just as much caution as many other recipes I’ve come across. 

This was the case when I decided to make home made apple crumble. Why make apple crumble at home when you can buy it at a supermarket and toss it in the microwave? Well, because it’s satisfying to do things yourself, and I admit it, sometimes it’s cool to impress my husband with something that seems fancy.

But back to the issue of how it is like love. You see after I came across the recipe online I realised I had almost all the ingredients at home; sugar, some apples, flour, digestive biscuits and nutmeg and butter. If I didn’t have any of these ingredients or I had chosen to use pawpaw and apples I would have been making something else. But because I almost always find recipes difficult to follow the first few times, I re-wrote this one to be a little easier for a novice like me.

Allowing the wrong ingredients into your relationships can make a horrible concoction. How many times have you embarked on a relationship and thought “Hey, this relationship thing is so easy, he loves me + I love him= 2 hearts that beat as one". Well, if it was that easy why do we have marriages ending after just one year, why do we see relationships where it seems all they ever do is fight and bicker? The same reason why the centre of my apple crumble wasn't entirely cooked, because; when the recipe told me to preheat the oven for some time they meant it, I shouldn't have put it in it in too soon.

Then it got to the baking stage. The recipe said cook for 30 minutes but I was in a hurry to taste it and in baking they tell you if you can smell it, it is probably ready. So, I took it out of the oven checked it with a toothpick and took a slice. I wasn't going to waste my time or gas for a minute more. In love it is very similar. A relationship begins and before you can say jack, the next thing on the menu is some physical intimacy...Chop-chop, no time to waste...

Time will expand or contract depending on our priorities. Some people build wonderful, loving relationships because the time they invest is mindful and meaningful. The greatest gift we can give a loved one is our full presence and patience… joy and harmony is always the experience if genuine love is the center of attention. If we just rush through because we want to enjoy what our friends say their relationships/marriages are like, or what you assume they are like, based on their Facebook album or Blackberry messenger display pictures, you’ll end up with what you didn't quite expect.

I could go on and on but let me pause here. I am an apple crumble expert now (If i do say so myself), so maybe sometimes it takes some trial and error, or as they say, practice makes perfect. But with love, as with cooking, always proceed with caution.

Remember your love is like cooking, it has the ingredients of a lifetime!

Ijeoma Olujekun