Yesterday I made a big pot of spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and brown butter blondies. The week before I made enchiladas, chipoltle style rice, beans, and chocolate chip banana bread. The list could keep going, because I LOVE to cook. I love the way everyone gets excited when they can smell it, the way food makes a place feel more like home, how all the spices, though I don't often times measure, somehow turn into an exceptional blend of flavor that makes what was once tomato sauce hearty and fragrant. Cooking momentarily consumes me, that of course is before I consume it; something about it shuts out the busyness and takes me into a place of peaceful productivity. I love cooking for the holiday's with special recipes, the recipes of friends long after I've seen them, or for some, long after they have even been in my life. There's something so reliable about that favorite biscuit recipe, or Grandma's lemon pancakes. And, of course, I add my own flair to each recipe, trying to mold it to my own. Naturally, there are the cooking disasters, the bread that needs to be scraped of burnt char and the pancake that tastes like butter masked baking soda, but the disasters are overshadowed by the victories -- the victories, yes, they are far better than any individual victory because you can see the contentment on people's faces as they're eating something that has been prepared for them. It is a simple, yet profound satisfaction to know that your food has brought together family, whether it's family by blood or by spirit, and in that there are laughs, and honesty, and sharing, and rest; this is the cooks reward.