Litany of the Line

Cooking is primal.
It’s raw. It’s fire. It burns.
A full-body ritual that makes you sweat—
shoulders tight, feet aching,
breath steady like a chant.

You balance fat, acid, salt—yes, everyone knows that.
But those in the know know there is more:
the bitter,
the funk,
the rot that’s useful.
Char, burnt carbon—adds bite to sweet,
rounds the edge of acid.

You taste with your nose,
read flavor in the air like scripture.
There’s perfume in aromatics—
onions, garlic, crushed herbs—
a kind of seduction.

Cream slides like silk.
Crisp shatters.
Chewy flesh, melting fat,
collagen sticks like sin—
familiar, forbidden, and meant to stay.

We dance around fire and steam—
simmering, shimmering baths of roasted bones
and bruised vegetables.
A witch’s brew.
A monk’s sutra.
Timing, intuition,
moving through pain.

Long hours.
Holidays away from the ones we love.
All for the silence.
The god waiting in the perfect bite.