I love to cook. I don't love shopping for ingredients or cleaning up the mess afterwards, but I do love chopping, stirring, mixing, dicing, and especially tasting. It's like being a mad scientist in a lab. Plus, I love to see someone's face light up when that first bite hits their taste buds.
Because I love to cook, I visit a lot of online recipe sites. These sites confuse me. I search through the recipes to find the ones that have been tried by a lot of cooks and have the highest rating. Chicken Parmesan with five stars next to it and that's from eight hundred ratings! Must be terrific! I scroll down to the comments left by all these five star reviewers and read, "Love, love, love this recipe! Best I've ever had. I used turkey instead of chicken, left out the tomato sauce, used swiss cheese instead of parm, added another cup of bread crumbs, cut the garlic in half, used olive oil instead of butter, and broiled it instead of baking it, and it was fabulous! Thanks so much for the recipe!" Comment after comment will be like that with each person changing six to ten things about the recipe and insisting it was fabulous. If the recipe needed so many alterations, did it really deserve five stars to begin with? I'm thinking no.
I understand the commenter who says, "I didn't have this, so I substituted that, and it was still good," because it's nice to know you can make minor substitutions if needed. But often, the cooks substitute so many ingredients to make the recipe fit their definition of five stars that you end up with a whole different dish. I might as well go on there and comment under scalloped potatoes and say, "It was to die for! I used chocolate instead of potatoes, and sugar instead of onions, added some baking powder and more butter and it was fabulous! It might look and smell just like a chocolate cake, but it's the best scalloped potatoes you're ever going to have! Try it out on your family tonight!"
People ask me for my recipes all the time, but a lot of my best dishes don't have recipes with exact measurements. I just know how much to put in by looking at it or by taste. That's how my mother taught me to cook those dishes and that's how I've taught my daughters to cook them. I'm not trying to keep them a secret so no one else can make them for their family. I just honestly can't tell you how much milk I put in my cabbage salad because if I tell you I put in a cup and you use a much smaller head of cabbage, it will taste like a cabbage milkshake. I can't tell you how much to use unless I see the pile of cabbage sitting in front of me.
Awhile ago, I started getting phone calls from one of my sisters-in-law asking me how I make this and how I make that. I thought she was having a picnic or something and wanted to serve some of my recipes. I tried to explain that I couldn't give her a written recipe for the dishes because I didn't use the same amount of ingredients each time. I told her I could give her approximate measurements on all the ingredients, but she would have to adjust for taste. A few days later, she called again to ask if I had the exact recipe for her yet. I repeated that I would be glad to show her how to make the dishes and give her a list of the approximate measurements, but I couldn't tell her exactly how much to use of each item. She called one more time and we had the same conversation again. You might think this is odd, but I've been in this family for over twenty years and believe me when I tell you, in the ballpark of oddness, this is Little League for them.
A couple months went by with no more mention of the recipes. Then, at a family party, the same sister-in-law produced a "Family Cookbook" she had made up with copies for everyone--aunts, cousins, friends, anyone who wanted one. Apparently, everyone knew about the cookbook except--you guessed it--me. In the car on the ride home, I browsed through the cookbook and found "J's Famous Cabbage Salad" listed, but except for cabbage, none of the ingredients were ones I used in my "famous" cabbage salad. The same with "J's Fabulous B-b-que sauce" or "J's Tasty Pecan Pie." They were all bogus recipes she found (probably at that online site with all the substitutions) and she was passing them off as mine!
Now someone who has been to one of my parties and has tasted my recipes is going to make one from the cookbook, expecting it to taste like mine, and when it doesn't, they'll probably think I pulled a Marie Barone and did it on purpose. And if they ask me about it, what do I say--oh, it doesn't taste right because sister-in-law, who they are either related to or friends with, went behind my back and put my name on recipes that weren't mine? Or what if they've never tasted my cooking, try a recipe with my name on it and it's horrible? Then they'll think I'm Debra Barone and I serve my family bad lemon chicken every night. And what if mine aren't the only ones? What if "Mom's Heavenly Butter Cream Frosting" and "Dad's Ridiculously Good Soup" aren't heavenly or ridiculously good? The whole book could be a sham!
If I was putting together a family cookbook, I would call people up and say the words, "I am putting together a family cookbook." Then, I would ASK if they would like to share any recipes. Then I would make sure their name ONLY went on recipes that they actually volunteered.
But that's just me. And as you all know---I'm crazy like that.
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