I have a book which was out of print in more than 1 million copies. What is the title and who is the author? You will be surprised but it is a first book of Ukrainian patriarch of the cookery Dariya Tsvek "Sweet biscuit". As you understand this book is about biscuits' recipes. I have Tsvek's several books about cooking. The total run of her books is more than 5 millions.
I think that the total number of her books establishes the truth how the food is important in our life. The food is involved in the most of our traditions and rituals.
But do you remember this ancient Latin phrase "We eat to live but we do not live to eat"?
How does this phrase correlate with our keen interest in the food, cooking, recipes?
It's simple. Cooking is not just about eating.
Tsvek's favourite proverb was "Traditions are not the past but the future". She handed down traditions through the cooking. So cooking is about traditions.
And cooking was how Dariya Tsvek expressed love. She said to her studens: "It is nothing that your dish burned slightly. It means that someone is burning with love to you!"
Her words correlate with proverb "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach", don't they? We have to believe her words because she was happily married during 47 years.
And the main point why cooking is not about eating: it is not for the stomach but for the mind. Because it is about doing.
I want to present you another author Irvin D. Yalom with his book "Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy". This book is not about cooking but about some ordinary peoples' recipes how to start living life to the full. Yalom is American psychologist. He describes some cases from his private psychological practice. One of his clients was very fat woman. Her life was miserable and she took food after meeting with each problem and failure. And of cause her life was full of problems and failures. She was stuck. Of cause she prefers junk food (pizza, hot dogs, cookies, chips, Coca-Cola, sandwiches). Yalom recommended her eat everything what she wants. But all food must be cooked by her. After that she started to lose her weight. Step by step she changed her life.
You can find other interesting personal stories in this book. They are not success stories. And I have got to say that it is not light reading. This book is about how changes take place.
So friends, the autumn has come. I wish you pleasant tea drinking with sweet biscuit from Dariya Tsvek and solid reading from Irvin D. Yalom. And who knows maybe you'll find your own recipe of living life to the full.