I Thought It Took Eleven Things

Eleven things.

You looked it up, because you meant it this time. And the list had eleven items on it, and three of them were things you had never bought in your life, and one of them was a word you were not certain how to say out loud.

So you closed it. And the family ate something else, and nobody noticed anything had almost happened.

This is not the first list. There have been a lot of lists, and they all do the same thing: they start reasonable and then somewhere around item six they turn into a shopping trip, and a shopping trip on a Tuesday evening is not a thing that occurs.

And each time, the conclusion you draw is the same one, and it is the wrong one. The conclusion is that real cooking is out of reach.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing in this article is going to send you out for anything.

Not one item, not a small item, not a thing you could pick up on the way home. The whole of what follows happens with what is in that kitchen right now, because the list is the problem and adding to it would be agreeing with the list.

Better is a dinner of herbs

There is a line in Proverbs that puts two dinners side by side and picks the smaller one.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. (Proverbs 15:17, King James Version)

Better is a dinner of herbs.

A dinner of herbs is not a meal anybody would photograph. It is greens and not much else, the plainest thing a household could put on a table, and the verse does not merely permit it. It calls it better.

And the thing it is better than is a stalled ox, which is the most food a family in that world could imagine. The comparison is not close, and the plain one wins.

You are being handed a standard where the smaller table is the better one, and a short list has never once made a dinner a lesser dinner. Proverbs 15:17 puts a dinner of herbs above a stalled ox without hesitating, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who closed a page at item six.

And notice what actually decides it in the verse, because it is not the food at all.

Where love is. That is the whole of the difference. The measurement being taken is about who is at the table and how they are with each other, and the size of the meal is only there to show how little it weighs by comparison.

Which means the eleven items were never the thing being assessed. Nobody has been assessing.

You have been cooking under a measurement nobody was taking, and the length of a list has never once been what the table was being judged on. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been pricing an evening by its ingredients, and Proverbs 15:17 settles it on where love is rather than on what is served.

Three things is a meal, and always was

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. A long list is not what a real meal requires. It is what a recipe requires, and those are different objects.

A recipe is a specific dish reproduced accurately, and accuracy costs items. A meal is food that a household eats, and most of the meals eaten in the world have three or four things in them.

Think about what the people in your life actually eat when nobody is trying. Eggs and bread. Rice with something on it. Pasta with fat and cheese and pepper. A pan with an onion, a tin, and whatever is left of the bread. Three things, four at most, and every one of those is a dinner.

You were reading a recipe list as a definition of dinner, and three things in one pan has never once been less than a meal. Proverbs 15:17 names the plainest possible dinner and calls it better, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has closed a lot of pages at item six.

And here is the second half, which is about your family rather than the food.

They are not waiting for eleven items. They are waiting for food and for you to be in the room and not tense about it, and a simple thing on a Tuesday with everybody talking is the exact dinner that verse is describing.

The eleven item version, in practice, arrives at half past eight with somebody frustrated in a kitchen, and the verse has an opinion about that one too.

You have the better dinner already available tonight, and a plain plate with your family around it has never once come second to an ambitious one. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with a short list and a family in the next room, and Proverbs 15:17 weighs where love is against a stalled ox and does not find it a close contest.

What tonight is, with three things

So here is the assignment. Cook one thing tonight with three things from that kitchen, and sit down to eat it with whoever is there.

Tonight. Three items. Not four, not a small fourth, and nothing from outside the house. Go and look, pick three, and put them in one pan. Eggs, bread, whatever fat is in there. Rice, an egg, a bit of onion. Pasta, butter, cheese. Do not go out and get anything.

It may not be good. That is expected, and it is information about a first attempt rather than about you, and three things is not the reason if it is not good.

You are cooking a dinner rather than reproducing a dish, and a meal made of three things has never once owed anybody a longer list. Proverbs 15:17 calls the plainest table the better one, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that stove with somebody who stopped counting items.

Then the second half, which is the one that does the work. Sit down and eat it with whoever is in that house, at the table, on plates, at the same time. Not in shifts and not standing at the counter while they eat somewhere else. Where love is, the verse says, and where love is happens at a table with people at it.

You are laying the half the verse actually measures, and a plain meal with everybody sitting at it has never once been the lesser table. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with three things on a plate, and Proverbs 15:17 decides the whole question on who is there rather than what is served.