Do You Use Recipes?
I'm trying to break out of memorized formats and back into writing
I spent some time today transcribing things into my “recipe book” from diverse scraps of printed paper, direct messages, texts, my own brain; the places that hold most of the recipes I love. Lately I’ve felt the need to have a better system of keeping track of the way (and what) I cook. Most often I cook by instinct, leaving measurements and rigid ingredient lists far by the wayside. But then I sit down to the recipes given me by other friends or teachers and I think what a gift it is to have recipes that are gift-able. By that I suppose I mean, the ones not locked in a sole person’s brain, easily lost by accident. When I miss my friend Shannon, I make the spicy pasta she’d feed me after long shifts in the restaurant kitchen. I make her mushroom-gravy toasts. I make avocado toast the way she taught me too; the way Yottam Ottolenghi’s books taught her: with butter and lemon in the mash, and lots of sharp cherry tomatoes on top.
Recipes are infinite in their ability to bring distant people closer. If Shannon hadn’t transcribed the pasta, the mushroom gravy, the octo-bean salad (niche beach-dinner, delicious) into a quick Instagram caption or a text, Amsterdam would feel so much farther away than it naturally does. Instead, I can cuddle up on my couch with a bowl of spicy bolognese and watch Moonrise Kingdom, the way we did when we shared the same state on the same continent.
I really start to notice how much I’ve gotten away from written-down recipes when my mom texts me to ask about a soup I made. These days I have to send a voice memo in response. My official rendering of my Grandmama’s mashed potatoes (which she did not write down) now comes with the instruction to boil the potatoes till “velvety to a fork’s touch.” Now that’s hardly good kitchen science, is it. Is my cooking now just an oral tradition?
Of course I think it’s useful to have several meals you can make without looking, so that you can fix something tasty in someone else’s kitchen, say, or while on a holiday. I think it’s sexy when a person can walk into kitchen and command it calmly, preferably with his sleeves rolled. This is the entire appeal of Stanley Tucci, who is (admittedly) extremely appealing.
On the other hand, it can be daunting for new cooks to learn from someone who never measures (or writes down) anything. Few people new to the kitchen are comfortable enough in their skills not to second guess every motion. I love how experienced cooks can pass skills along to those less experienced. But I really love how inexperienced cooks teach those of us who have spent decades in the kitchen how to really think about what we are able to offer, and how we should be offering it. I want to be able to pass recipes to my sister-in-law, or a good friend who’s never learned how to really cook. I want to be able to provide some formulaic structure so that they one day feel safe to experiment - something that is hard to gain confidence in when you are never sure where the boundary points lie.
When Andrew and I first married, he couldn’t do much beyond scramble eggs and boil pasta. A few years in, his ability has bloomed to the point he can make dinner on his own, and spends many evenings with me, prepping, stirring, chopping, and sautéing as I “art direct” the dinner. I am sure he could do even more if pushed to the point, as he possesses the skill. What I’m really wanting for Christmas is that he’ll teach himself how to make a Caesar salad the way they do at posh hotel restaurants. It’s such a specific ability, but it’s hot in the way that Dean Martin was hot, which is to say gives off, “makes the dinner reservation himself”.
At any rate, I’m taking the time necessary to transfer things into a writable form. My sister’s British roommate taught her the world’s simplest way to make tomato soup from scratch, and when she made it for me in her small Upper East-Side kitchen, that knowledge was transferred to me. None of it’s written down, presently, but it’s exactly this kind of recipe I am making efforts to capture so I can more effectively (and continually) share it. I plan for these recipes to be a chance for my family and close friends (the real humans who eat my food) to be able to make those dinners if they want to. To be honest, most of them are not what you’d call glamorous, but they are nourishing, delicious, and practical, and never boring. I’m also hopeful that you might enjoy cooking some of these recipes too. They reflect the kind of thing a lower-middle class couple in Coastal Virginia is making for dinner, not the sort of thing they’re pulling out for dinner parties. I love a Half-Baked Harvest recipe as much as the next person, but in these recipes (unless otherwise stated) I want to try to avoid asking extensive shopping lists from you.
With this in mind, I’m wondering what you’d like to see from me as we make the December rounds. Do you need some holiday baking recipes, or do you need practical meals to make to anchor your system in a month stuffed with festive treats? Do you want to know how to make hot cocoa for two, or what to serve at a holiday party to guests who don’t drink alcohol? If these (or anything else) interest you, let me know in the comments below and I’ll do my best to share some recipes throughout the next few weeks!
Finding ways to stay warm,
Rachel