Ursula K. Le Guin – Soft-Boiled Eggs

There are two dueling schools of thought when it comes to great cooking. One says it’s all about ingredients; the other says it just boils down to technique. But in my experience, neither is wholly correct. To be a great cook, you must have time. Time determines how beef falls off the bone, or whether a soufflé stays aloft. Time usually decides whether we cook at all: if we don’t have enough of it, we’ll skip the process altogether and get takeout.

In No Time to Spare, published shortly before her death last week, Ursula K. Le Guin reflects on all the things that compete for our limited time. Her hours are “fully and vitally occupied with sleep, with daydreaming, with doing business and writing friends and family on email, with reading … with cooking and eating a meal and cleaning up the kitchen … None of this…