Not a Murder Mystery
Every once in a while I make something and either me, or someone else, will want the recipe. This, of course, is the product of making modifications to the recipe and not remembering what the heck I did that the dish ended up the way it did (granted, sometimes I want the recipe so I will not repeat the same mistake in the future, but hey...) -- so I often think to myself "I should write this down" followed quickly by "I'll do that later..." which of course is the magic incantation to make sure it never happens... ;-)
Also, I often want to write down a recipe because from my perspective it's in a completely insane order -- God only knows why magazines (and often cookbooks too!) make you measure things the way they do, say, for example, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla... WTF? Why can't they tell me to measure everything with the tablespoon, then everything with the teaspoon? Why change from one to the other? My first thought is that maybe professional cooks were taught to always measure the ingredients in a certain order, so they'll remember them or something. My second thought is, screw that, I think they do it because they secretly crack up when we'll eventually put a tablespoon of baking soda and ruin the dish or something very much like it.
The other reason is that the standard way recipes appear in USA is a list of ingredients, then instructions that say essentially the equivalent of "mix the first 3 ingredients" etc, which bug me, because now you need to look and count, or decide on the spot what is say, a dry ingredient or a liquid ingredient when they say "mix all the dry ingredients and then all the liquid ingredients then mix them together" if you're, say, making muffins. Oh, sure, you say, "what kind of moron are you if you don't know what is a liquid ingredient and what is a dry ingredient?" -- well, how many kinds of morons are there, so I can pick which one I am? :-P The thing is, for muffins it probably doesn't make much difference, but for cakes, sugar is often a liquid ingredient, and if you modify something that has to do with the liquids, you may have to add or remove sugar, for example, so it's not always immediately apparent what to do if you are a newbie in the kitchen like I am. Also, in the standard American way, you certainly can make sure you have all the ingredients in the quantities you'll need, but often, buried about the end of the recipe, they'll spring up a surprise required equipment (a "monkey-fondling reciprocal lubricator", say) you don't have or a technique you know nothing about and now you are desperately trying to flip to the right part of the book that teaches you the technique or explains the equipment while the recipe fails because the baking soda is reacting with the acidic ingredients and you have only one minute to put this all in the oven.
And then there's stupidity... not sure if mine or the recipe author's... you read the list of ingredients and it says "one beaten egg", so you whisk it. Moments later it says "whisk the dry ingredients well, then whisk the wet ingredients then fold them together..." -- yup, maybe the magazine's kitchen has oodles of clean whisks or people who know the drill, but I fell for this more than once. (And you can stop laughing now, please!) Maybe by the third time I do that, I should just rewrite the recipe in the way I should do it.
Yes, yes, I know, it's a recipe, not a murder mystery, I should read it at least twice to make sure I have everything and understand it before I start it, but, but, but...
In any case, there will be posts in this LJ under the heading "Not a Murder Mystery" and now y'all know why. Deal accordingly. ;-)
Also, I often want to write down a recipe because from my perspective it's in a completely insane order -- God only knows why magazines (and often cookbooks too!) make you measure things the way they do, say, for example, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla... WTF? Why can't they tell me to measure everything with the tablespoon, then everything with the teaspoon? Why change from one to the other? My first thought is that maybe professional cooks were taught to always measure the ingredients in a certain order, so they'll remember them or something. My second thought is, screw that, I think they do it because they secretly crack up when we'll eventually put a tablespoon of baking soda and ruin the dish or something very much like it.
The other reason is that the standard way recipes appear in USA is a list of ingredients, then instructions that say essentially the equivalent of "mix the first 3 ingredients" etc, which bug me, because now you need to look and count, or decide on the spot what is say, a dry ingredient or a liquid ingredient when they say "mix all the dry ingredients and then all the liquid ingredients then mix them together" if you're, say, making muffins. Oh, sure, you say, "what kind of moron are you if you don't know what is a liquid ingredient and what is a dry ingredient?" -- well, how many kinds of morons are there, so I can pick which one I am? :-P The thing is, for muffins it probably doesn't make much difference, but for cakes, sugar is often a liquid ingredient, and if you modify something that has to do with the liquids, you may have to add or remove sugar, for example, so it's not always immediately apparent what to do if you are a newbie in the kitchen like I am. Also, in the standard American way, you certainly can make sure you have all the ingredients in the quantities you'll need, but often, buried about the end of the recipe, they'll spring up a surprise required equipment (a "monkey-fondling reciprocal lubricator", say) you don't have or a technique you know nothing about and now you are desperately trying to flip to the right part of the book that teaches you the technique or explains the equipment while the recipe fails because the baking soda is reacting with the acidic ingredients and you have only one minute to put this all in the oven.
And then there's stupidity... not sure if mine or the recipe author's... you read the list of ingredients and it says "one beaten egg", so you whisk it. Moments later it says "whisk the dry ingredients well, then whisk the wet ingredients then fold them together..." -- yup, maybe the magazine's kitchen has oodles of clean whisks or people who know the drill, but I fell for this more than once. (And you can stop laughing now, please!) Maybe by the third time I do that, I should just rewrite the recipe in the way I should do it.
Yes, yes, I know, it's a recipe, not a murder mystery, I should read it at least twice to make sure I have everything and understand it before I start it, but, but, but...
In any case, there will be posts in this LJ under the heading "Not a Murder Mystery" and now y'all know why. Deal accordingly. ;-)