What a Life!

As I may have already mentioned, I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner solo this year. It’s not a problem to me – in fact, I did it one year even when I could have had help just to see if I was up to the challenge (and I was). The difference this year is that I’m making the menu myself, with a few requests from my husband sprinkled in, and I have no mother-in-law or sister-in-law to find fault with what I choose.

Most of the recipes I’m using are tried and true. There’s one, though, that’s from a cookbook with which I either have really good luck or really bad luck.

Steve has requested Sweet Potato Pie. He just wants to try it once. And my husband like to try new things, unlike yours truly who prefers to stick with what she knows when it comes to food. So rather than making pumpkin pie, as I had planned, or pecan pie, which would be my choice, I’m trying the Sweet Potato Pie from this cookbook.

Yes, that’s America’s Test Kitchen. If you wanted me to give a one-sentence review of their recipes, it would be that they think a lot of their opinions. They’ll go on and on about how they tested this and tried that and this was the ultimate way to do [something]. When I try it in my kitchen, either I am greeted with good success or total failure. It’s an all or none type of thing. As in, make sure you have frozen pizza in the freezer before you try a recipe from this cookbook because you may be needing it. I kid you not.

Their stovetop macaroni and cheese? The best recipe I’ve come across. I keep the ingredients on hand for emergency meals.

On the other end of the spectrum, fried chicken. They go on and on about how important it is for the oil to be hot or the chicken will be soggy and greasy. I totally buy their theory. However, their recipe tells you to fry the chicken in one inch of oil. You put the specified number of chicken pieces in the oil, and the temperature of the oil is only supposed to drop a few degrees…or, of course, you will have greasy, soggy chicken.

Okay, I do not know what type of kitchen they are cooking in. In fact, sometimes I am wondering if it’s even a real kitchen. I mean, with state-of-the-art stuff in it and all – who has a kitchen like that? Anyway, I don’t know what type of pans they have or what type of stove they use or what the humidity runs in their kitchen. I can tell you that when you put that much chicken in that little bit of oil, the ratio of cold-chicken to hot-oil causes the oil to cool dramatically, resulting inevitably in greasy, soggy chicken. And folks, I’m using the pots and pans they sell at the state fair for a mere $2000 for a set. Yeah, those.

When I use four inches of oil in my big soup kettle, I can fry chicken with no problem. They come out nice and crispy and when I put the oil back into the container after it is cooled, only about a tablespoon of oil has been used. Seriously. But one inch of oil? What exactly were they drinking when they wrote those instructions? I would really like to know. This is basic science. Stuff you learned in chemistry in the fifth or sixth grade. If you put a little bit of cold (relatively speaking) into hot, the hot will stay pretty hot. But if you put a lot of cold into hot, the hot won’t be very hot anymore. Just saying is all.

Don’t worry – the sweet potato pie is the only thing I’m making from that cookbook. And that’s for Steve. No love lost on my part if it doesn’t turn out – I don’t like sweet potatoes anyway.

But this does lead me to a theory. Namely, a theory about which recipe books are “safe” to try new recipes from. I happen to own two cookbooks from which I have not had a single recipe fail. This one and this one. Both Junior League cookbooks. Not just local Junior League cookbooks – most requested recipes Junior League cookbooks.

What is my theory? These recipes work because they were submitted by real people cooking in real kitchens. As in, not professional chefs cooking in state-of-the-art kitchens which apparently are quite unlike the kitchens the rest of us have.

But don’t just go pick up any locally compiled cookbook and think you’re going to try the recipes with great success. I have a cookbook published by the church I grew up in. My mother is a good cook, and she knows who the good cooks are. As well as the bad ones. She has told me not only whose recipes are completely safe but also whose recipes I should, well, stay away from. Again, just saying is all. You know what I mean.

And lest you think I’m the only one who has such incredible luck with recipes touted to be most amazing and excellent, you must go read the Yarn Harlot’s account of a cookie recipe – from a Martha Stewart cookbook – that was made in her kitchen. You will gain a completely new understanding of the life of Martha Stewart. I mean, I am a regular Yarn Harlot reader, and she is usually rather amusing. This post had me rolling on the floor, howling. It was also that post that planted the seed for my theory about which cookbooks are “safe” to cook from and why.

And finally, there is a book that I think I would like to have: Cookwise – The Secrets of Cooking Revealed. It’s supposedly about the science of cooking in a why things work sort of way. From the reviews, I think I would find it fascinating. And then with that knowledge I might be able to have more luck with cookbooks such as America’s Test Kitchen by being able to apply common sense to the recipes rather than following them to the letter and then failing. I would understand what was going on and be able to make the necessary adjustments for a recipe to actually work. In theory.

Oh, and if some of the America’s Test Kitchen people would like to come over to my house and test some of their recipes using my kitchen, my equipment and my ingredients, they are most welcome to. And I will be more than happy to report on my blog exactly what recipes they tried as well as exactly how they turned out. Just saying is all…