A good meal, anyone?

What makes a good meal?
A tried and tested (or tasted!)recipe? Hearty and fresh ingredients? A honed skill of many years or simply good company? Perhaps all of these.
My husband often asks me how I can cook so many different dishes. I hardly ever make the same recipe more than a couple of times. Even when I make the same dish twice, adding the same ingredients etc they always manage to taste a bit different. Maybe cooking a dish is just like having a relationship with someone. It may be your best friend from high school your ex-boyfriend, the postman who has been delivering mail for years now, your swimming instructor, the local barista, the man who sells you fish at the grocery store, your aunt from Hyderabad, your husband or your favorite teacher---it's all so different and yet so similar in some ways. Like the spices that add flavor to a dish, in a relationship you must have respect, love, trust, expectation, reliability and so on. Well, of course you don't need to love your barista, you just rely on her to help you start the day with a perfect cup of coffee. Maybe you don't have to trust the mailman not to peek into your mails (it's a bunch of bills anyways!) but you do expect him to be there---a familiar face somehow makes the everyday chores so much easier! You don't obviously need to love your ex (unless you are not over him yet!) but perhaps you hate him; or trust him with the secrets you shared...or not!

Like a good meal, you need all these different people and all the myriad emotions attached to each of them. Makes life so much more complicated and yet so much more interesting!