Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintanence
"What's really angering about instructions of this sort is that they imply there's only one way to put this rotisserie together -- their way. And that presumption wipes out all the creativity. Actually, there are hundreds of ways to put the rotisserie together and when they make you follow just one way without showing you the overall problem, the instructions become hard to follow in such a way as not to make mistakes. You lose the feeling for the work. And not only that, it's very unlikely that they've told you the best way."

O'Reilly had quoted this paggage in his blog on the philosophy of open source movement. This fits in well with the cookbook I'd been contemplating.
Another phrase Pirsig uses is something close to my heart ". ..they make you follow just one way without showing you the overall problem, the instructions become hard to follow in such a way as not to make mistakes Stating the problem and letting the listner appreciate it as a problem leads to increased creativity.

Les say the problem is " How to make flour edible" and not how to make 'proper chappatis'. If the problem is restated this way, the following experiments may occur...

1. I might try adding just salt and pepper + water and try eating the dough raw
2. I might experiment with various liquiods for mixing diff kinds of oil, ghee, honey, cream, buttermilk etc etc.
3. I might try various baking methods.. or even try frying or microwaving.

Now all these would give rise to whole new classes of dishes. SUre, a majority of them will not be edible, but the process would sure be fun. And the jackpot is you might genuinely hit upon a combination which is lip smacking !