It's prescriptivist versus descriptivist as applied to cooking, really. I'm cogitating on an essay about pattern VS recipe knitting and I can see a kind of science vs craft divide there, too. Or maybe I've just got Craft Issues.

"We come in Peeps"

Diorama-thingie of aliens arriving on earth, done with Peeps.

I love the comments on epicurious.com recipes, but that's because I'm a cook like that, too. I have a recipe for lentils that I'd swear is what I use to make them, except I leave out a few ingredients and add a couple of others.

Funny things people have said in court: [link]

Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?

...

Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.

...

I've heard this one before:

Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

I think the worst was the "people keep tinkering with recipes, nevermind that they've all been extensively tested by Gourmet magazine."

Wow. That's special. I mean, I mess around with recipes all the time based on what I actually have in the kitchen, and god forbid you have any dietary restrictions.

I mean, cut me some slack. I'm not a sous-chef! Sandra Lee is not representative of me!

The thing that kills me on some of the cooking shows is when they're all "And you can just make this with ingredients you have in your pantry!"

You've never seen my pantry, lady. Unless I can make it with chicken stock and Special K, a grocery store is going to be inolved. That Barefoot Contessa woman is the worst offender. "I like to have several kinds of rum on hand, including a nice dark rum, and of course some Framboise, a good quality bottle of champagne..."

Okay, so I read the full article at the NYTimes, and I'm tempted to write to Zanne Stewart of Gourmet magazine and ask if she's really that much of a condescending jackhole, or if she was just misrepresented that way.

The thing that kills me on some of the cooking shows is when they're all "And you can just make this with ingredients you have in your pantry!"

My siblings and I jokingly call my mother's pantry "the bomb shelter", but quite frankly, I don't have that kind of storage space. I could probably eat well for two weeks with the ingredients in my pantry, but I also just got groceries. Which is why last night I dined on asparagus, pine nuts, cherry tomatoes, and raspberries.

I live for her pantry. And Nigella's. I mean, we could all have that if we had the space and a rich husband.

I'm a big recipe changer, too, but I'll admit to getting cranky if I give someone a recipe and they don't try it once as written.

I mean, I don't care about changes for allergies or ingredients they don't have on hand, but if they chuck in a bunch of spices or something else that will totally change the character of the dish, I just think "Why are you telling me you made my recipe? 'Cause you didn't."

Of course maybe the problem is my crankiness, not that they're changing the recipe.

I'm a big recipe changer, too, but I'll admit to getting cranky if I give someone a recipe and they don't try it once as written.

me too. I mean, I usually try to make it exactly the first time, but I'm usually like "hmm, I don't like mint, I'll use parsley instead" or whatever.