When Printed Recipes Go Bad

One of my pet peeves recently reared its ugly head: Poorly written and/or edited recipes. Especially when printed in food and/or wine related magazines, it’s just unacceptable. When I was working for Wine Enthusiast Magazine, I discovered why these recipes could sometimes look so wrong – they’re written by restaurant chefs.

Why would this pose a problem? Reason 1: typically, restaurant chefs don’t write recipes. Their expertise is making the food. Reason 2: The recipes these are based off can have a yield of “serves 25” or “serves 50” Frequently, proportions can’t just be cut in half or a sixth or more without needing to make other modifications.

An even bigger pet peeve is when non-food magazines print recipes – and badly. If someone is getting a recipe from People magazine, that person is most likely not a seasoned cook. This means that EXTRA care should be taken to make sure the recipe is clean, concise, CORRECT and printed WITHOUT typos.

In People magazine’s April 27, 2009 issue, there is recipe printed on page 94 from a Mario Batali cookbook. Here are my biggest issues with this recipe [that’s printed for non-cooks]:

• The quantity for the Linguini pasta is 1¼ lb. to feed 4 people. Noone is going to open or buy two boxes of pasta to get this quantity. Come on people, scale the recipe so it makes sense and people will actually have a chance at making it correctly.
• Since it doesn’t say otherwise, I have to assume that the pasta is dried from a box (as opposed to fresh). Therefore, the cooking time of 1-2 minutes is ridiculous. I’m assuming they meant 11-12 minutes (which is standard for a dried linguini).

For someone who doesn’t know how to cook or doesn’t have confidence in their cooking abilities, how do you think they’re going to feel when they’re pasta is crunchy and essentially raw??

I have nothing against People magazine at all – in fact, it’s one of my favorite guilty pleasures. But please, take a few extra minutes to proof these. I wouldn’t want to see Mario mad.

It's Too Expensive to Eat Healthy

People are always talking about how eating healthy is just too expensive. I've always tried to stress that you don't need to buy the fancy organic food. It's a combination of fresh food and smart choices.

A little experiment that included two lunches purchased in New York City:

Lunch #1 included a salad of fresh baby spinach, chickpeas, sundried tomatoes (NOT in oil), black olives, a palmful of Parmesan cheese, sliced mushrooms with fresh lemon juice and pepper as the dressing.
Cost = $6.00

Lunch #2 included McDonald's single cheeseburger, small french fries, small strawberry shake.
Cost = $6.25.

Your heart, gut and wallet thank you.

My Coffee Plight

It's one of those mornings when I really need that first cup of coffee. It’s cool out, which makes me want to pull the covers up further and hit snooze a few more times. But, I trudge into the hustle and bustle of NYC, being used as a human pinball several times before arriving at the corner deli. As I do every morning, I give my order, “Coffee, milk only please. “

I walk the rest of the way to the office with my coffee safely tucked into a paper bag (ugh! Didn’t stop them in time – but alas, another rant for another day). The elevator’s taking a very long time today… do I sneak a sip now? Oh! The elevator’s here. Ok, here we go… stop at floor 2 (couldn’t they walk up??)… 6…(the smell of my coffee inabag is intoxicating)…9…finally we get to the 20th floor. I think I’m going to pass out unless I get caffeine NOW!

Boot up the computer, sit down, open the coffee, Hoorah! Big gulp, “ahh.. gack! Cack! Blech!” There’s sugar in here! Enough sugar to send a child into a coma! What part of “Coffee, Milk ONLY” got lost in translation??

*sigh * I do not judge those who enjoy a sugar bomb in their coffee, but this is not a good way to start my day.

Tipping for Take-Out

There are many points of view on the topic of Tipping for food-related services. Keeping in mind I have a lot of friends in the food service industry, here is my point of view on tipping for take-out:

I don’t do it.

Does that make me a bad customer or a bad person? I don’t think so. Let’s look at my tipping philosophy in other types of establishments:

At a sit-down restaurant:

Generally 20% AFTER tax.

Unless the service is really bad. When I say really bad, I mean, sitting for 20 minutes with an empty wine glass, not having ordered my food and then it comes out burnt and then I sit with the burnt food for an additional 20 minutes before someone comes over and says, “…and how is everything?” (true story)

Then they might get 10-15%.

For delivery:

Usually $3-4 or up to 10% of the bill.

There are many factors in determining this amount though: the weather, what I’ve ordered (McDonald’s or sushi), how many of us ordered and how quickly it gets there. Generally it’s about $3-4 or up to 10% of the bill, whichever is more.

Back to take-out:

Most of the time, at least in this country, the kitchen workers aren’t receiving the tip. It’s the servers and sometimes bus staff. So when I order take-out, the kitchen staff prepared, packaged it and probably walked it up to the front where it awaits pick-up. No one from the restaurant has served it to me, set my table or cleaned up my mess.

Therefore, unless I ordered some crazy $300 order for 12 people, I’m not going to leave a tip for take-out. And, I won’t feel guilty about it, damnit.