Pay close attention to what you are doing while you work, for precision in small details can make the difference between passable cooking and fine food. If a recipe says, "cover casserole and regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly," "heat the butter until its foam begins to subside," or "beat the hot sauce into the egg yolks by driblets," follow it. You may be slow and clumsy at first, but with practice you will pick up speed and style.

Allow yourself plenty of time. Most dishes can be assembled, or started, or partially cooked in advance. If you are not an old campaigner, do not plan more than one long or complicated recipe for a meal or you will wear yourself out and derive no pleasure from your efforts.

If food is to be baked or broiled, be sure your oven is hot before the dish goes in. Otherwise soufflés will not rise, piecrusts will collapse, and gratinéed dishes will overcook before they brown.

A pot saver is a self-hampering cook. Use all the pans, bowls, and equipment you need, but soak them in water as soon as you are through with them, clean up after yourself frequently to avoid confusion.

Train yourself to use your hands and fingers; they are wonderful instruments. Train yourself also to handle hot foods; this will save time. Keep your knives sharp. Above all, have a good time.

Excerpt from the introduction to Volume One of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child

Song of Solomon 2:10-13 

10 My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
    and come away, 

11 for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.
12 The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.

16 My beloved is mine, and I am his; he grazes among the lilies.

Song of Solomon 6:2-3

2 My beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of spices,
to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies.
3 I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.
7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

Song of Solomon 2:10-13, 2:16, 6:2-3, 8:6-7 English Standard Version (ESV)

I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. 

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. 

May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. 

May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won’t be able to re-fold it no matter how smart you are.

So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can pull over and have picnic.

Quotes merged together from both Edward Abbey + Jim Henson