After listening to Mr. Food, a chef who does a daily recipe show on TV, I decided I to try his meatloaf recipe.

I just need the power of suggestion to make me want about any food.

The thing was his recipe for meatloaf was so simple and pretty much like my Mom did when she made meatloaf.

She put dry oatmeal in the recipe, rather than crackers, because It was what she had on hand. It always tasted good to us.

Mr. Food has a way of making you want to try all his recipes by showing the finished product. Either he or a lady who helps him in the kitchen takes a taste of everything and then Mr. Food always says in a nearly seductive voice, “Oooh, it is sooo good!”

If your mouth is not watering before he says that, it will after. You believe it must be delicious.

I am making meatloaf for dinner tonight, and I hope it will be as good since I am using Mr. Food’s recipe.

While making it, I thought of a recipe that caught my eye in a magazine this past week. It sounded so good and looked delicious in the picture. It was called a banana butterscotch cake.

I love bananas and eat one every morning for breakfast. I love the flavor of butterscotch and thought this cake has to be delicious.

I went right by the recipe and my mouth watered as I caramelized the bananas in brown sugar and butter. I added the dry butterscotch pudding the way the recipe said.

I never veered once from the recipe. I was not happy with the results of the cake.

It was so heavy. I also wanted it to have a butterscotch flavor with a hint of banana but instead got all banana flavor and no hint of butterscotch.

I even double checked the recipe to see if I had omitted something or done something wrong. I guess you know I will not try that recipe again.

I started thinking, though. What if we had a recipe for life? The real answer to this is we do if we would go by the Bible and not stray from it.

If we went completely by the Ten Commandments in the Bible, the best recipe for life, our world would be such a wonderful place to live in.

I also thought what a mess our world would be in today if the Ten Commandments had never been given to us by God.

Then I thought how simple he made the Ten Commandments. He put them in a plain message. We are the ones who make things so hard in life.

Take lying for example. The saying, “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,” is so true. It might have been a good thing if every time a lie was told our noses grew like Pinocchio’s.

My daddy used to tell us, “A lie will find you out.” Isn’t that so true? People learn who they can trust.

Sometimes it is so hard to discern since most liars have lied all their lives and have become so good at it they do not have any moral conscious to nag at them.

I learned early in life I disliked liars. I also learned that if I told a lie when I was young I got my butt busted.

I can remember once calling my oldest brother a name I had heard and thought I would use it. As soon as I said it he told me he was going to tell on me.

I knew what was going to happen to me so I tried to make up a lie by making the word sound like one I invented in my head.

Needless to say, I got in more trouble than if I had just told the truth.

I learned a lot that day. For one thing, I dreaded the butt busting I knew I was going to get as soon as he told on me. I knew I should have never said it in the first place.

I also learned if you are not a liar, you expect others to tell you the truth too. I think it hurts worse when you realize it does not bother some people to lie. It becomes their recipe for life.

I am about to take my meatloaf from the oven. It looks good and I am hoping looks won’t be deceiving.

If it tastes good, I am going to quit adding so much extra in the meatloaf I make.

After all, life is supposed to be simple. We are the ones who make it so hard.

We should all learn from our recipe of life the Bible has given us.

I think life itself has given us a good recipe.

Watching others’ lives can make us know we do not want to do certain things and we use that as a recipe in our own lives also.

Sue Staton is a Clark County native. She is a wife, mother and grandmother who is active in First United Methodist Church and Towne and Country Homemakers.