Is it wrong to shoot a man on the beach because the sun was in your eyes and your mother is dead?
— MALIBU MERSAULT

In cooking, it’s important to do whatever feels right in the moment — improvise and learn to trust yourself. It’s the same with literally everything else in this godforsaken world. If you’re on a beach and the sun is beating down, and the brightness blinds your eyes, and you are struck by the sudden urge to kill a man, trust your gut. Gather your children near to you and tell them that we as human beings are locked in a struggle that we can never win, which will continue until the cold hand of death rids us of all our troubles at once. Then, let this realization follow you to the kitchen! Let your primal urges guide you: cook your shrimp scampi like you are shooting a random man four times in the chest. Stir and simmer your sausage gumbo like you are committing a crime against both God and man — barely flinch as the sizzling oil scalds your skin because you are so numb to yourself. Food, flesh … what’s the real difference? The entropy of the world is unkind, unforgiving, and inevitable, but one must imagine chefs happy.