The Secret Ingredient - X

One small ingredient may change the flavor of a dish. The absence of salt or the presence of excessive amounts of any ingredient may spoil the entire effort put into creating a masterpiece. However, there is one ingredient that can be added in infinite amounts. The more you add the better your dish tastes. That ingredient has no upper limit and can not alter the dish for the worse. It is one ingredient that can be added only at home, by your near and dear.

When I was fifteen, I was preparing for my board exams. My mother brought a plateful of cabbage rice and placed it before me. I gulped a spoonful and relished the taste of the 'SECRET INGREDIENT' (I will call it X for convenience sake). I could sense that my mother had added X in copious amounts and thanked her for it. She smiled back and ate the cabbage rice and exclaimed that she had not added sufficient salt. I retorted that the presence of X, more than made up for the lack of salt. She smiled back and proceeded to add salt to the food and in the process added some more X to the food.

During my 'Master's Days', I would enter my apartment an hour before midnight. My room-mate would have prepared dinner for me and would leave it on the kitchen counter for me to eat. Though the dishes she prepared were meant to be warmed prior to consumption, I would taste a little and proceed to eat the entire bowl without warming it as the taste of X overshadow all other tastes. My room-mate added X generously and never gave a second thought about it.

Nowadays, my current room-mate and I, eat together once in a while. Sometimes I prepare the food and sometimes she does. Yesterday we added excess pepper to the soup we made, and the day before that we added a dash of chilli to the food we made. This chilli was unfortunately extremely spicy and left us with teary eyes. Yet, we enjoyed the dinner we shared as we both had added the ingredient X to the food we were preparing.

This Secret ingredient - X, is an ingredient every person possesses. It costs nothing and can be added to food in unlimited amounts. It will not spoil the food you are making and is completely healthy. You can not buy it or sell it. The only thing you can do is give it away or add it to the food in unlimited quantities. The best part is, the more that you add, the more you will receive. If your are worried about receiving too much of it and cluttering the storage shelf, do not worry as it occupies only space in your mind and heart and not in your shelves.

This ingredient is called 'Love'.