The Recipe Book

                The problem with recipes is they do not really instruct you how to “make” them. Sure, there may be some simple directions or an order to put things in a bowl and mix but in reality, the recipe writer has to ASSUME you know what the hell you’re doing. This however, is not always the case. For example, Gram’s has shown you in person how to make her super-secret Sunday sauce and pasta, otherwise her recipe might be useless without her implicit knowledge that she has passed along to you as you both made it together for the first time. Even after she hands the recipe over to you, telling you in her 1950s style avocado green kitchen not to reveal her secret ingredient. Her hand-written note with its beautifully written ingredient list in that swirly and flourished handwriting only Grandmothers can write in. Unless she shows you how to make it, it’s just not enough to reproduce the same tasty sauce you grew up loving.  So since then you framed her beautiful written recipe with a piece of masking tape over the secret ingredient and hung it up in your kitchen for all to admire.

                To get all recipes made correctly only takes the knowledge of the techniques that may date back well over a century and that have been passed along from one chef to another or one mother to her daughter or in my case her son.  The first step is not only learning how to cook but for what reason you are doing what you’re doing. There is always a reason why your adding butter off heat to a sauce or why you have to cook the piece of cheap chuck steak on low for six hours to get it tender enough to melt in your mouth.  There is even a reason why EVERY TIME you make a hardboiled egg the friggen’ thing sticks to the shell and it’s impossible to peel!

                Learning to cook is not impossible. Like any skill, it takes time and practice. How much effort you put into it will determine how fast you learn and how much you retain. That’s why there is so many culinary schools. Learning to cook from a book without the help of a live person or at least a video might be near impossible but I am willing to try to help. Heck, I am even willing to make a video or two or three if I can find someone who is willing to recorded, edit it and post it on YouTube but let’s see how far this recipe book project goes first.

                I wrote earlier that I will post the recipes here but if you need lessons on how to make them, I will be writing those posts as lessons on this site from my NEW cookbook too. I am currently writing this book during this whole project called “How to cook: American Style.” Let us see if I can write this new cookbook in the next upcoming year. You get to test it out as we go. You also get to let me know just how bad or well I’ve done. I’m pretty sure you will all post comments, at least I hope you will.

                Most of all may you be happy, be healthy, love what you do, and enjoy life! Until the next time I post, I’m hoping all your drinks and meals are good ones!

The Drunken Chef (AKA – Russ)

               

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing,2023