Chili Music

I can't remember when I started singing. I think it was about ten seconds before I started blinking. Suffice it to say, mine is a musical life. And it has always been my belief that anybody can make music. Anybody with a pulse can understand at least the basics of rhythm. Anybody who can feel can get an inkling of volume, pitch, harmonies, and percussion.

Music is in all of us, even the deaf, the mute, and the horribly untalented.

You see, anyone can learn to make music. Not everyone can learn to make music well.

I think the same holds true for cooking. Take the noble vegetarian chili, for instance. My partner Fey has a wonderful recipe for this dish that takes about 20 minutes and (by her standards) requires the basic culinary skills of a monkey. Simpler than peeling a banana, this recipe is.

So.

When she is not feeling well and asks me to cook, our menu inevitably returns to this chili. I go to the kitchen. I pull out the ingredients and cooking tools. I turn on the stove. She walks me through it, step by step, in order.

And it is a passable meal.

Last night, Fey made this same dish, same ingredients, same steps, same tools. And it was delicious. Maybe it's experience, maybe it's practice, or maybe it's something completely intangible.

Maybe her chili is better than mine in the way two pianists can play an etude by Chopin with very different results. One pianist plays the notes, the crescendos, the decrescendos, the tempos and rhythms. The other makes music.

My partner makes music.

I make chili.

Thank goodness I can write about this stuff. Thank goodness Fey can cook it.