by David D. Horowitz.
“But Uncle Jim can’t eat anything with nuts in…”
“But I spent lots of dough and a full hour mixing and baking, and now…”
“He’s extremely allergic to nuts: walnuts, almonds, peanuts, whatever. Some people with
that allergy could die from ingesting them.”
“It’s a great chocolate chip walnut cookie recipe, but…”
“No recipe suits everyone. I once spent a full day preparing casserole for my boyfriend, only to discover he hated dill and wouldn’t eat it. I had dinner for a week, though. I’ve spent hours preparing a dish, only to learn my guests were on a low-sodium diet or were lactose intolerant or had to observe religious dietary restrictions. And sometimes a recipe seems off, calling for too much or too little of a spice, like cumin or pepper.”
“Sure, that happens a lot. And I definitely should ask my guests—even the ones I think I know—about dietary preferences and restrictions.”
“Recipes are guides, not perfect formulas. Often we need to synthesize, vary, add a pinch, eliminate a spice, bake for ten more or fewer minutes. A recipe blindly followed will more often lead to disaster than one with a few flaws.”
“That’s not unlike politics, where a credible proposal can harden into dogma. Nuance, complexity, and unique circumstances matter, like with Uncle Jim’s allergy.”
“Jim’s circumstance is a significant problem, not an outright disaster, and I’m his niece and love him and want to do what’s best for him. But how do you respond to, say, Vladimir Putin, when he threatens the Ukraine with nuclear weapons?”
“I have no perfect recipe. Guiding principles, yes; absolute formulas, no. I wholeheartedly support the Ukrainians, but that situation is volatile and deadly, and we have to trust in our ability to balance respect for life and national sovereignty to guide us through the difficult, bloody details. Distinguish principle from dogma and flexibility from cowardice: those are some of the recipe’s basic ingredients.”
“Beyond that, it’s a work in progress. Start with basic ingredients; pursue a plan; but be prepared to adjust. Sometimes spicy is best; at other times, keep it bland.”