April 10, 2025: The Magic Ingredients

We were stranded and hungry. Possibly doomed.

One winter, a storm shut down everything. My college roommate, Kendall, and I were snowed in and low on groceries.

When I peeked at our supplies, I was convinced our survival depended on peanut butter sandwiches. But Kendall saw something different.

He stood in front of the pantry like a wild scientist doing an experiment, taking stock of the chaos. Half-used sauces, forgotten cans, mismatched spices. Then, pulling items from the fridge, he started whipping meals together.

Every night, this culinary wizard made magic from nothing. Entrees that shouldn’t have worked. Delicious dinners I couldn’t have produced even with a cookbook.

The stranger the ingredients, the better it tasted. Pure improvisation.

That memory came rushing back today while listening to a podcast about creativity. For example, take three simple things: sand, heat, and a tube. What can be made by combining them?

Heat turns sand into glass. Shape that glass into a lens. Put the lens in a tube. Suddenly, you have a telescope.

Those ordinary components, assembled just right, reveal the cosmos. Distant stars and planets, invisible to the naked eye, brought into focus. Mind-boggling.

Creativity isn’t about perfect parts. It’s about connecting the unlikely and finding surprising results.

Embrace the power of imagination.

Just remember, Kendall helped me see dinner in pancake mix and a can of olives.