The Cooking section

I pay fifty dollars a year for access to the New York Times cooking section. Regular subscriptions to the paper give you articles about food-related this-and-that, but the cooking section proper has scads of recipes and an excellent search capability. I find much inspiration therein.

An especially amusing — or aggravating — component of the recipes is the comments, many if not most of which explain the alterations, substitutions and other manglings people have perpetrated on the dish in question.

Only yesterday I came across a recipe for “Classic Chili con Carne,” classic in this case meaning Texas-style, which means “no beans.” THERE ARE NO BEANS IN TEXAS CHILI.

Someone named Elliot weighed in as follows:

This may be the best chili I’ve had. I used 2lbs lean ground beef instead of the (three pounds) cubed chuck, used toasted ground cumin instead of the whole cumin, and replaced the two anchos that go into the chili with one dried scotch bonnet pepper… To the finished product I added about three or four cups of cooked kidney beans. Absolutely perfect…

Texas chili is BY NO MEANS PERFECT if you put a quart of kidney beans in it, and Elliot can kiss my grits.

And a busybody named Sarah offered her own two cents’ worth:

I made last night (1.5x recipe) with a mixture of 2 lbs venison, 1 lb hot pork sausage (from freezer), 1 lb organic 80/20 ground beef and 1 lb of ground turkey. I drained the cooked mixture and also drained the onions. Added spices (used dried California and anchos) to pan as written, then onions and meat. Poured in a bottle of strong Sam Adams Bully Porter and let cook down before adding the beef broth and tomatoes-no water. It was divine – maybe the best chili I’ve ever made.

What the hell.

Moving on to “Linguine with Clams,” let’s hear what Marmylady has to say about the RECIPE SHE JUST READ:

Or try a recipe given to me by a real Italian grandmother and great cook: Chop one bunch of green onions, mince two cloves of garlic which you saute in two tablespoons, each, of butter and olive oil. Add two can of chopped clams, a splash of white wine and simmer for twenty minutes. Despite its apparent simplicity, it is one of the most satisfying dishes around. This amply dresses one pound of pasta. Her name was Argia Giuntini and a friend of my father’s aunt.

Write your own damn cookbook, Marmylady, and you can rhapsodize over your father’s aunt’s friend all giorno long.

Staying with the linguine, Mr. Russell Henly — if that’s even his real name — shares his route to deliciousness:

I’ve been making a similar recipe for years, first inspired by my Uncle Sid and Aunt Amy. I also include chopped scallions and like to add a some Vietnamese fish sauce or anchovy paste…

Countless nonnas spinning in their graves…

A kindred spirit of mine named Susan Pomerantz — her real name because who would make that up? — speaks up for the rational among us:

I am surprised at how many non-recipe writers seem to think that they know better than the real deal. So obnoxious.

Finally with the linguine, this from KD:

The way I learned from my Uncle Bruno was to make a light roux first…

Surely we’re being punked.

One more recipe, this time “Classic Hollandaise Sauce” by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey, two illustrious food writers and cookbook authors of the mid-to-late 20th century. The very first comment comes from Donovan:

Easiest method of making Hollandaise sauce is by microwave.

And Nate doesn’t mince words:

Ignore the recipe. Here’s the right one…

I could go on but won’t. I’m worked up enough already.