Asparagus Syndrome

What does it mean if your most meaningful social interactions are with a kaffir lime leaf? What if your tears are not caused by propanethiol S-oxide, but flow from some deep seated empathy for the brown onion that lies in rings on your chopping board. Is it odd to try and see the potential for good in thymus gland of a dead cow?
There are a great many ingredients in this world, probably too many to know in one lifetime. Of those that I have met some have proven to be valuable colleagues, others passing acquaintances, regrettable one night stands and a select few my most trusted confidants. Having spent a little time living in this realm of produce I know that it is only through respect and understanding that I can make the most of the friendships that I forge here.
This insight does not mean that I have never tarried from the path of culinary enlightenment. At my hands anglaise has become vanilla flecked scrambled eggs and like a misguided Moses I have split seas of mayonnaise. Sometimes I have unreasonably asked two conflicting elements to co-habitat a plate or invested too much time and energy on new ingredient and neglected those that have been good to me.
Faithfulness is a great challenge in cooking where there is the constant allure of the unknown. New love affairs can be formed in an instant, the thrill of the new sensation as the first taste fills your mouth, nose and thoughts. You want to own it, so that you can constantly relive that initial sense that your world had expanded.
My choice of culinary companions is at times as much a reflection of my xenophobia and prejudices as it is of my better judgement. It is easy to forget that there was a time when the pungent odour of shrimp paste would merely have induced disgust and the notion of ingesting engorged goose liver would have seemed repugnant not indulgent. My narrow mindedness is not only directed towards things that are foreign and mysterious, at times it is the most commonplace ingredients that I offer least respect. Familiarity can breed complacency and disregard and it is only a chance encounter with a cabbage in another context that makes you realise how wonderful this modest plant can be.
Cooking can be one of the purest acts of empathy as you take elements and endeavour to understand their nature, their great qualities, flaws and needs. Then armed with this knowledge the challenge is to shape conditions to generate an environment that is most conducive to fulfilling the potential of the ingredients at your disposal.
Care and respect have a very distinctive flavour, one that cannot be synthesised or replaced through technical wizardry. Understanding is not solely the domain of those that can perfectly set a protein in a sous vide bag.
I guess that this is why I find myself in a polygamous relationship with cloves of garlic, sticks of asparagus, rounds of Camembert and half shell scallops, in the hope that one day I will be able to extend to them the friendship that they have offered me.