Why I could never write a cookbook

Lorraine, the chef extraordinaire, is always helping ruin my diet by posting tales of her wonderful dinner parties, replete with photos of the dishes she serves, and often recipes of same. I could probably create a cookbook from her archived posts. She even contributes to an awesome recipe blog called The Bon Vivant Gourmet, along with JLow, Seattle Coffee Girl, and Jessnbekahsmom. While I love to cook (isn't that a prerequisite for being born Italian?), I seldom follow a recipe. In fact, often I start out following a recipe, discover I don't have some ingredient or other, and then improvise. The only time I follow a recipe, word for word, is when I bake, which I seldom do. Baking requires precision. Cooking doesn't, usually. To me, cooking is like painting or drawing; you adjust the creation as you go, tweaking as needed to achieve the desired end result. It's inventive, creative, and fun. Baking is work.

Now, before all you baking whizzes out there post flaming comments, let me make this disclaimer: if you know what you're doing, you understand how flour, water, sugar, salt, and the various ingredients that "fluff up" the baked goods (leavening agents), interact with one another to create the end product, so you can tweak to your heart's content. I am not endowed with that special talent, nor do I care to be so endowed. I just don't find baking, for the most part (except for excellent bread, which I really enjoy making), a pleasant experience. But give me some chicken or other protein food, some produce, wine (for the cook, of course!), olive oil, herbs and spices, a few staples like pasta or beans, and I'm off and running. My dishes may not be as pretty in presentation as Lorraine's, but they usually end up tasting pretty darned excellent.

Problem is, unless I pay close attention, it's hard to recreate that dish since I made it up as I went. I ran into this problem just last week. I made a dish that The Spouse loved. The next day I made another one he really enjoyed. He said, "I'm not sure which I like better, this meal or last night's." Great. I didn't even remember what I had made the night before. How was I going to make it again? All I knew was that it had chicken in it, and I think I served it over pasta. So, that's why you will never see a cookbook entitled Gina's Galloping Gallery of Gourmet. Besides, cookbooks are for sissies, right? KIDDING!