Transcendental Cooking: more than the sum of their parts
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“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”Harriet Van Horne
Part of what makes my cooking Seeryously Gude is the emotion that I pour into the food while I am making it. I literally put my heart into the meal. I believe that a meal is more than just the sum of its parts. I can write down a recipe or tell my husband how to make something if I am just too tired or traveling on business, but there is just something more subtle to making an excellent meal, and the nuances can not be conveyed via a recipe.
Maybe it just comes down to energy, but when I cook for my family and friends, the emotion that I feel in providing an amazing meal that I know they are going to love literally gets incorporated into my cooking. It is transcendental. It is something that I have a hard time replicating if I’ve had particularly bad day and my food result is clearly uninspired. But, when I decide that I want to make something amazing, it doesn’t matter how common the ingredients, the meal will come out truly special. I seek to convey my passion through my food and when I’ve gotten it right, it is amazing (even though most end up quite full at the end and the longing for nap replaces any feelings of passion that the meal may have conjured).
Is it just me or is this a common feeling among those that love to cook? I decided to search for “transcendental cooking” and found that and it is somewhat of a THING. Darn it, wouldn’t you know that the URL FoodWitch.com is already taken!
The movie Like Water For Chocolate or Simply Irresistible would be examples of transcendental cooking and conveying emotion through food. 
In my search, I found a wonderful post, The Transcendental Qualities of Cooking, by a woman named Kit Pollard, that explains another side, an aspirational philosophy of cooking, that is very true for me as well (but she explains it more eloquently).
I feel that my journey into food is just starting. I am compelled to learn as much as I can about food and cooking; this passion of mine is awakening in a way that was not there before. It is almost as if I have spent my time until now learning and preparing for this next phase where I am going to truly dive into the art of food and see where it takes me.
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