Freedom.

The effect of good cooking on morale is high indeed. I have never been good at humility but occasionally I find it gives you a boost. Despite more than five decades of marriage, if you are both devout cooks, a certain amount of contentiousness arises during cooking. In this case your best sous chef is not your wife. Why is this? The lumps should have been flattened over fifty-two years, but there is something so deeply personal about cooking that the irascible ego easily pops up with a frown. I used to mostly cook late in the evening for the next day. This offered maximum freedom for me to overplay my hand. Yes, I like seven pounds of short ribs and twenty-three cloves of garlic in barley soup. Some will settle for less but they’re not writing barley poems.

Jim Harrison