We Cook Everything On Two Burners

Since March it has been two burners.

And it took until Tuesday to notice what that had done, and what it had done was not a shortage. Everybody has eaten every day and nobody has been hungry and the household has run.

What it did was quieter than that.

Roasting went. Anything that goes in an oven went. Then anything that needs more than two pans, which is more things than anybody would guess. Then, without a decision anywhere, the list of things that get made in this house shortened from about twenty to about seven.

And the seven are good. They are genuinely good and everybody likes them.

But on Tuesday somebody asked whether you still made the thing with the potatoes, and you said no, and then you stood there for a second, because you had not thought about that thing since about April.

You are a man feeding his household well and not a man managing a decline, and a meal cooked on two burners has never once been a lesser meal than one cooked on four.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is

There is a proverb that compares two dinners, and the thing it measures is not on either plate.

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

A dinner of herbs.

That is the plainest possible meal. Greens and nothing else. And it is set against a stalled ox, which is the best meat there was, from an animal fattened in a stall specifically for eating.

And the proverb comes down on the side of the herbs, and the deciding factor is who is at the table and what is between them.

You are cooking at a table where the deciding factor is already present, and a plain meal eaten among people who love each other has never once been the lesser dinner in that comparison. Proverbs 15:17 measures the company rather than the menu, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man standing at a stove on a Tuesday evening.

And notice the honesty of the proverb, because it is not pretending.

It does not say herbs are as good as beef. It does not claim the plain dinner is secretly the better meal. It admits that one table has more on it and then says the other one is still better, for a reason that has nothing to do with food.

You are permitted to notice that the list got shorter and still be feeding this house well, and an honest account of what is missing has never once canceled what is present. The written word admits the difference between the two tables plainly, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a man hold both facts at once.

And there is one more thing, which is that the proverb is about a dinner rather than about a diet.

It is a single meal. One evening, one table, one set of people. The comparison is made at the scale of an actual evening rather than at the scale of a household's whole arrangement.

You are able to think about one evening rather than about a system, and a single meal on a single night has never once been too small a thing for Scripture to rank. Proverbs 15:17 compares two dinners rather than two households, and the Holy Spirit is the one present at one table on one Sunday.

The seven are not a decline

Something practical, and it is about what actually happened to that list.

A cook with four burners and an oven has twenty options and uses about nine of them. A cook with two burners has seven and uses all seven, and gets very good at all seven, because seven things cooked forty times each is a lot of practice.

That is not a household in decline. That is a kitchen that has concentrated.

You have been getting better at seven things while thinking you were losing thirteen, and a cook with a short list has never once been a cook who was managing a loss. The written word ranks the table by the company and never by the number of dishes, and the Spirit of God is the one who counts what is actually happening at a stove.

And here is the thing that has quietly gone missing, and it is worth naming because it is fixable this week.

The effort went out. Not the food, the effort. Because effort felt pointless when the oven went, and so meals became efficient rather than made, and efficient meals are eaten standing up and at different times.

That is the part worth taking back, and it is not about the oven at all.

You are able to put effort back into a meal without an oven being involved, and a good meal made on two burners has never once required more than two burners to be made well. Proverbs 15:17 puts the whole weight on the table rather than on the equipment, and the Holy Spirit is the one present in a kitchen where somebody decides to cook properly.

So cook one good one on Sunday. On the two burners. Something that takes an hour and involves tasting it and adjusting it.

And then put it on the table properly, with everybody sitting down, which is the half that actually matters.