Summary. The art and joy of cooking is very much like expressing oneself through the creative outlet of improvisational music composition. Some musicians play directly from the sheet music. Some painters create a painting to appear as much like a photograph as possible. In a similar way, some people enjoy cooking from a recipe without much deviation. Cooking creatively is like composing music spontaneously. Picking the ingredients is like choosing what key you will play in and what chord progression you will use. Beyond these basics, the combination of ingredients is left to the moment of spontaneity.
Recipes. Some recipes are written with great precision in the same way that sheet music is notated very precisely. Other recipes simply list the ingredients, and allow freedom for the creative intuition of the one cooking. Anyone who has played in a band has probably experienced a free flowing jam session. This is what improvisational cooking is like. Here is a list of sample recipes: