Buon Appetito!

Did you ever notice how quickly people can eat a meal or treats that took you disproportionately much more time to prepare?  It almost seems wrong somehow.  And the more complex the cooking project, the more possessive you may become about who eats it and how they respond to it--as in I'm not going to waste my time making that for people who don't care.  There is the cliché of food that has been "lovingly prepared," but at some point cooks have to balance their investment between  the needs and realities of the eaters (I tend to make homemade bread to go along with homemade soup because I know hardly anyone will eat the soup but they all love the bread), and their own level of pleasure and sense of duty in making the food.

Food can be very emotional.  And so can writing.  What you take hours to write can be read and evaluated very quickly (unless your teacher is giving extensive feedback).  Even long reads like a Brandon Sanderson or Tolstoy novel may take you hours to read, but it took them even longer to craft, I assure you.

I really don't know where I'm going with this, except to urge us to be cautious of our time in the kitchen and at the computer, and to try to cook and compose things that work for us and for our audience, and maybe even bring satisfaction to both.