Recipe Meltdown

I am knee deep in writing recipes right now, and I'd just like to say - for the record - that writing standardized recipes is not for the faint of heart. Especially for someone like myself who really prefers to sort of "cook from the hip".

Recently I had to put the kibosh on recipe requests from customers - it was getting out of hand. We sort of had this loose policy over the past few years that if someone really enjoyed a dish at a wine dinner or a cork & fork night, they could ask for the recipe and I would diligently oblige by writing something up for them. It started to border on the ridiculous lately, with 4 or 5 recipe requests a day coming in. While I'm flattered that people enjoy my cuisine - a girl has limits!

So I've developed this sort of love / hate relationship with recipes. I think because it has become such a chore to write them. On the other hand, it's funny, because I rely on recipes so often for inspiration or a bit of help when undertaking a complicated or classic dish. And I completely understand why people are reliant on recipes when cooking at home. I mean - I need an instruction manual to flip on a light switch. To me, a great recipe is like a road map , a clear indication of where you are going to begin and where you should eventually end up. The important thing is that it's necessary to deviate sometimes folks, in fact, I encourage it. If you like garlic, add garlic. If you don't like bell peppers, leave them out. I swear some people treat recipes like they came from the old testament. IT'S A GUIDEBOOK NOT A BIBLE. But people are gun shy, because it's not their forte, or they don't want to go to all the trouble of preparing a meal only for it not to turn out perfectly. I get it, which is why I am working so hard on this cookbook - to make it user friendly and easy to understand.

But I will tell you, it's pretty hard to take a dish born of spur of the moment creativity and put it down on paper in the form of a standardized recipe. It's tedious. And I think because I am sort of going back into the annals of my culinary pursuits for the past 15 years to distill my favorite dishes right now, I'm just plum recipe-d out. I'm sure I'll be over it by tomorrow=)