Loose Ends
The cook or not the cook
Susan Nienow

It happened again - someone asked me for recipes for a cookbook. I used to have two recipe files - one 4x6 and one 3x5. (If I started one today it would 8 1/2x11 so I could read it.) I also had a file folder that held the recipes I tore out of the newspaper and magazines, usually with pictures.

The significant word here is had. None of that belongs to me anymore. I don't have a recipe file, stove or even a pan. All things labeled "might be used in the kitchen" belong to my other half. I retain users' rights to the microwave, refrigerator and toaster oven.

But I used to cook and bake - my signature dish was baked chicken breast with bottled barbeque sauce poured over it about 30 minutes after putting it in a 350 degree oven. Add a baked potato for each person and cooked frozen peas, beans or fresh broccoli. Voila!

I had a significant collection of dump and bake recipes - things that used cream of mushroom, celery or chicken soup or the packaged onion soup with a meat and a variety of vegetables. I also collected "guaranteed to wow" hors d'ouvres recipes. These only came from reliable sources. I never tested recipes myself.

Bad experiences in the kitchen haunt me even today. If crunchy wild rice or vegetables done just in time for dessert weren't strong enough messages that, at best, I was a disinterested cook, then the dinner for 30 disaster shouted at me.

For reasons too involved to go into, I was obligated to serve dinner to 30+ people. I made manicotti, lasagna and cannelloni, froze some and refrigerated the rest. The morning of the dinner, I set the frozen pans out to thaw - but not nearly early enough. My thawing inexperience, serving 30 and having but one oven and one microwave resulted in the hors d'oeuvres hour stretching to nearly three hours.

I would have panicked, but I was too busy moving pans in and out of the microwave and the oven, moving food into glass containers from metal ones and sticking my finger in the middle of the casseroles to see if they were warm.

So much for dinner for 30. I haven't made cannelloni since. I am also reluctant to freeze anything.

I don't think they want my pickle recipe. I made pickles once, and when I opened the first jar, I had to air out the kitchen for hours. Since it was a "tried and true" recipe, I think it must have been the cook's fault.

I hunted through the recipe files for the few that are good enough to pass on - spaghetti, lasagna, hot dogs. Oh, wait - scratch the hot dogs. Not much of a recipe there. And there's my diet chili, but that has a limited audience. It's mostly celery.

My new rule is going to be: don't join any group that is going to put together a cookbook.