Miss Manners: i have no recipe to give

[minoanmiss]

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Cooking is one of my passions, and I love to share my food with others. And while I love positive feedback, I am sometimes taken aback by the automatic request for a recipe as soon as someone compliments something I've made.

Unfortunately, I do not use recipes. I am an intuitive cook, who many times throws things together. I have explained several times to these people that I do not use recipes, but continue to get asked.

I am not a curmudgeon, and not trying to keep my creations' ingredients secret; I just don't have the time, energy or memory to remember everything that went into a dish. What would be a good response to the constant, "This is delicious. Recipe, please!"?

GENTLE READER: "I made it up and don't have one. But I'm flattered that you liked it so much. You'll just have to come over again and I'll try to re-create it."

Comments

[ioplokon]

I'm in this letter and I don't like it!

For me, I don't really plan meals or shopping & just buy what is cheap. Then I make something based on whatever is in there... Even for savory baking, I tend to go by vibes & make a lot of substitutions.

I also made some spice blends and forgot what is in them, so even I am a victim of my disorganization (& obviously mainly use that for myself + people I know well enough to know they are okay with Mystery Seasoning)

[minoanmiss]

Cooking By Vibes is totally valid. Especially when seeing What Ingredients One Has and working from there, rather than shopping to a recipe. I spent many years starting from What Did X In My Household Buy/What Was Cheapest At The Store and it was almost always worthwhile.

[full_metal_ox]

And I also make a point of memorizing a retail calendar and waiting for key items to go on loss-leader. Cabbage? New Year’s and Saint Patrick’s Day. Tofu, bok choy, and water chestnuts? Lunar New Year. Avocados? Cinco de Mayo, mid-September (when several Latin American countries’ Independence Days cluster), and major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and March Madness. Seafood, dairy, egg, pasta, and legume proteins? Lent.

[minoanmiss]

oh that's very organized! I haven't yet managed to remember that.

[full_metal_ox]

And then there’s the local seasonal agricultural cycle—-which I’m having to relearn, having moved into a vastly different climate from the city where I’d spent 90+% of my life. Michigan-based Meijer’s annual autumn Bulk Apple special(1) ain’t happening on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Conversely, I have now had an opportunity to learn that dragonfruit, in season and grown locally, actually warrants the hype.

(1)Ohio Meijer’s stores have been known to advertise the apples as sourced from “That Place Up North”; apple season overlaps with football season, which is Serious Business in the Great Lakes area.