Culture Bitch

Yes, this is my blog.  I’m paying for the hosting and domain name and something inside me really wants to write about all my fabulous food and wine experiences but I have to say that I just don’t have the energy.  I’m busy at work (which is a non-food related job) and when I get home, all I want to do is relax.  Sometimes writing for the blog is very stressful.  Is my punctuation correct?  Typos?  I know if I spelled something wrong, my sister (who should be the Grammar Bitch) will let me know - so this is stressful.  But tonight, the eve of Thanksgiving, I feel compelled to give a little bitch.

Tomorrow I will be cooking for two: me and the Beer Bastard (who also sucks at posting).  If ever there is an opportunity to play with the Thanksgiving standards, this would be the year.  If I really had balls, I would roast the turkey on The Egg…but I don’t have balls.  So, I’m thinking about playing with the side dishes.  To get my creative juices flowing, I decide to search www.epicurious.com.  Here’s my bitch…how can you possibly rate a dish that you haven’t actually cooked?  Almost every single review contains at least one of the following qualifications:

“I made this exactly as the recipe indicates EXCEPT…”

• I didn’t have x, y, or z or I substituted a, b.
• I added x.
• I didn’t have x so I omitted it

This utimately results in comments like

• It wasn’t that great, I wouldn’t make again (maybe you should try making it first, not your ‘creative’ interpretation, which apparently sucked)
• It was too x.  (maybe that’s because you deviated from the f’ing recipe, Idiot)
• It was lacking something (gee, maybe the f’ing ingredient that you omitted!)

I get so irritated when I read these reviews.  I don’t mind people saying “I tried the recipe as written and it was ____ then I tried it by substituting x for y and I enjoyed it much more”.  I just really have an issue with people reviewing a recipe that you didn’t actually try.  You modified it.  You cannot rate a recipe that you did not actually make.  Period.

But here are the people I especially like.  The budding chefs who say stupid things like “I haven’t made this recipe but just looking at the ingredients, I wouldn’t like it”. These people are the worst.  What the heck?  Why are you even reviewing a recipe that you didn’t try?  I hate these people, they suck.

Ahh.  I feel so much better now.  Of course this doesn’t really help me with what to do with my Brussels sprouts tomorrow but you know what, I’m going to take some of these recipes and use the techniques and ingredients to make my own recipe.  One thing I will not do is rate the recipes that I didn’t actually make.

Thanks for reading the bitch.  There are lots of great things that I should write about including:

• Paris and La Tour D’Argent

• Truffle Dinner #2

• What I did with my first fresh white truffles

Maybe a long weekend will motivate me to write.  You should be so lucky.  Happy Thanksgiving!