Tag Archives: recipes

A Culinary Heist in Broad Daylight

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“Stealing a recipe is like stealing a kiss—do it boldly, do it well, and for heaven’s sake, make sure it leaves them wanting more.”

–—Me, just now, in the grand tradition of misattributed wisdom.

Rare is the occasion that finds me speechless, but this may be one of them. I h ave come up with an idea whose brilliance is beyond brilliant, and the only way that I know how to share it is in the context of a comment that Oscar Wilde may have made on January 3, 1882. When he disembarked from the ship that brought him to New York and went to the Customs House, government agents asked their standard question: 

“Do you have anything to declare?“

Wilde supposedly answered: 

“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

I realize, of course, that I must tweak Wilde’s quote if it is to serve my purpose, and I will do so. I think there’s nothing wrong with doing that. Actually, I think it’s fine and dandy since I have given him credit, though I don’t see why that’s really necessary since the attribution to Wilde is more than likely erroneous. But I will err on the side of my integrity by retaining the probable misattribution. I have changed the quote by one word, albeit a significant one, thereby making it my own. Henceforth, it will be mine. All mine.

“I have nothing to declare except my culinary genius.”

Many of you–my Dear Readers–know about my culinary genius already, because I have hinted at it from time to time. However, my FB followers know about it far better because with them, I know no shame. I post frequent photos of my culinary masterpieces. Truthfully, I like to think of them as Food Porn. Only a few days ago, I shared my unabashed celebration of culinary desire, where a crackling sourdough Margherita pizza stole the spotlight. It had a blistered crust, air pockets rose like tiny golden mountains, bubbling mozzarella stretched into molten strands, and fresh basil leaves fluttered atop like green confetti. And get this. My photo showed it being served up before a roaring kitchen fireplace. It was more than just a meal. It was a hearthside seduction, a slow dance of flavors and flickering flames, teasing all the senses and leaving anyone looking utterly and deliciously captivated.

Inevitably, when I share those food porn photos, at least one person–usually more than one–comments:

“You need to publish a cookbook.”

I decline, demurely.

After all, I have so many other books in the fire that tackling a cookbook has always struck me as more than I can swallow. But things changed just the other day when I took a hankering for some Nuoc Cham-Inspired Meatballs. I love them, and they’re not that difficult to make. I Googled a recipe, and one by NYT Cooking popped up! Hot damn! I decided that I’d go with it. Then I discovered that in order to see the full recipe, I’d have to subscribe, and these days with the price of eggs going up and up and up, I just can’t afford to subscribe to recipes.

I just kept right on Googling, and before long, I discovered the same recipe splattered everywhere. That set me to thinking about Copyright infringements. Not to worry! Did you know that you can’t get a copyright or a patent on a recipe?

“Say whaat?”

It’s true. I won’t get into the (legal) weed(s), but recipes themselves can’t be copyrighted. However, if the recipe involves a unique step or process or if it takes on a literary twist, then it can be.

Unique literary twist???

OMG! Am I literary and twisted or what? I know how to fool around with words. This is super sweet. I’ll play around with one recipe–the NYT Cooking recipe for Nuoc Cham-Inspired Meatballs that I found verbatim on multiple websites without a crumb of credit given on any.

Give me a minute or five. I swear it won’t take long. I’m good with foolin’ around. BRB.

See. That didn’t take long at all. I just came up with a razzle-dazzle literary narrative to go with the recipe:

“I remember the first time I had them—golden, fragrant, and suspiciously addictive. A close acquaintance, let’s call him ‘Brentford Lee’ (because that’s his real name), swore he had perfected the recipe himself. ‘A dash of this, a pinch of that,’ he said, waving his hand like some sorcerer of Southeast Asian flavors. I nodded, politely chewing, my palate deciphering the unmistakable signature of a recipe I’d seen before. Somewhere.

“Of course, it didn’t take much sleuthing to confirm my hunch. The same ratios, the same sequence—right down to the crushed Ritz crackers binding it all together. A carbon copy of a certain prestigious publication’s recipe, passed off as Brentford Lee’s divine inspiration. But could I call him out? No, no. We live in the Age of No Credit, where recipes are pilfered like unattended bicycles and reposted without so much as a footnote.

“So I let him bask in his culinary genius, even as I swirled my meatball in a bit of nuoc cham and smiled. ‘Brilliant, Brentford Lee. Just brilliant.’ Meanwhile, I tucked the recipe into my mental vault—because in this lawless land of recipe anarchy, the only rule is to steal it back.”

I had no sooner drafted that dazzling literary narrative than I realized I was on to something. I could do an entire cookbook, stealing recipes from the world’s most renowned chefs, dress them all up in my literary garb–the recipes, not the chefs though that’s (food) porn for thought, too–compile them into a newfangled cookbook arranged by food categories like Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Mains, and Desserts, publish the book, and file my Copyright.

And just to bring this heist full circle, I’ve decided to submit my proposal to NYT Cooking. I figure, if they’re going to make me pay for recipes, they might as well pay me for the privilege of publishing my stolen ones first. A fair trade, don’t you think?

“I have nothing to declare except my culinary genius.”

Let’s see, I think you, my Dear Readers, deserve a modest tasting menu of what my extraordinarily extraordinary cookbook will be like so that I can pleasure your palate.

APPETIZERS: A PRELUDE TO LARCENY

“Stealing a recipe is like stealing a kiss—do it boldly, do it well, and for heaven’s sake, make sure it leaves them wanting more.”

–—Me, just now, in the grand tradition of misattributed wisdom

Every great heist starts small. A lifted truffle from a posh soirée. A swiped canapé from a silver tray when the host isn’t looking. A recipe, pilfered in broad daylight, then draped in literary velvet until it’s unrecognizable from its humble origins.

This section is the opening act, the whispered promise of what’s to come. Here, I present to you the stolen first bites—the small, seductive preludes to full-blown culinary mischief. Grab a plate. No one’s watching.

SALADS: LEAFY DECEPTION

“A salad is merely a plate of stolen ingredients pretending to be virtuous.”

—Me, again, because who’s stopping me?

Salads are the original confidence tricksters of the culinary world. They lure you in with the promise of health and innocence, then smother you in cheese, nuts, crispy bits, and a dressing so rich it might as well be dessert. They are gilded greenery, whispered excess, a balancing act between penance and indulgence.

And so, in keeping with the Age of No Credit, I present a selection of salads—each one an outright theft, draped in just enough literary flourish to make it legally mine. Grab your fork. Justice is dressed and ready to serve.

SOUPS: LIQUID LARCENY

“A good soup is like a well-told lie—it simmers, deepens, and by the time you taste it, you don’t even care where it came from.”

—A philosopher (probably). Or me (definitely).

Soup is the ultimate culinary illusion—a cauldron of borrowed flavors, a slow-simmered scam where even the simplest broth has a backstory so tangled in history, no one really knows who made it first. And that’s exactly why it belongs in this book.

Ladle deep, my Dear Readers, into the warm, uncharted waters of plagiarism, where the spoons are heavy, the bowls are bottomless, and the only thing hotter than the bisque is the lack of attribution.

MAINS: GRAND THEFT ENTREE

“Behind every great main course is a chef who swiped the idea from someone else first.”

–Not Escoffier, but could have been.

This is where the stakes get serious. The main event. The crown jewel of culinary heists. A place where time-honored traditions meet a well-timed Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

Here, I serve up lavishly pilfered plates—steaks seared with someone else’s technique, roasts glazed in repurposed brilliance, pastas dressed in the creativity of long-forgotten hands. And yet, because I have woven them into my own dazzling narrative, they are now mine. All mine.

Bon appétit, legally speaking.

DESSERTS: SWEET, SWEET PLUNDER

“The best things in life are stolen. Ask anyone who’s ever ‘borrowed’ a cookie recipe and never returned it.”

—A confectionery thief with no regrets.

Dessert is the final seduction, the last laugh of the larcenous chef. Here, sugar and butter conspire in broad daylight, drizzled in caramelized deceit, dusted with the powdered sugar of plausible deniability.

From towering cakes to pies with scandalous backstories, I offer you this sticky-fingered collection of confections—every one taken, tweaked, and rebranded with just enough literary flourish to make it legally binding.

Because in the Age of No Credit, the only sin greater than theft is not licking the spoon.

_____________________

Voila! I have just uncloched the sections of my forthcoming cookbook. Maybe I’ll title it Cooking with Oscar. Or how about Culinary Heists of a Wilde Chef? I’ll keep thinking, but here’s the great part. What I’ve disrobed right here in front of you is protected by Copyright already because my blog is Copyrighted. All that remains for me to do is continue scouring the Internet. Whenever I find a recipe worthy of stealing in broad daylight, I shall do so. Then I shall dress it up–or down–in literary flamboyance and insert it into the proper section of my culinary opus in progress.

Food has never tasted this good, and, to think, it all began with my honest effort to find a Nuoc Cham-Inspired Meatball recipe. I guess it just goes to prove that a good recipe is not hard to find.

A Sweet Recipe for Life

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“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

—Epictetus (c. 50–135 CE; Greek Stoic philosopher whose teachings emphasized the importance of self-discipline, resilience, and living in harmony with nature.)

Simple things in life make me smile: snowflakes kissing my face, the scent of fresh sourdough bread baking in the oven, and even the gentle symphony of Ruby’s snoring as she sleeps. However, of all the joys that I treasure—small and big—one that stands out is the straightforward act of sharing: ideas, consolation, time well spent together, meals at the table, breads, cakes, and yes, even recipes. Those moments of connection take me beyond myself toward something truly meaningful.

Recently, I shared my mother’s celebrated fruitcake recipe, and in the act of sharing, I savored an unexpected, sweet reward of my own.

I passed the recipe on to a friend exactly as my mother had passed it on to me.

It starts with all the ingredients. It’s a hefty cake with four pounds of cherries, golden raisins, pineapple, and pecans. For the batter, it has just enough to hold the fruit and nuts together, but even then it has a half dozen jumbo eggs, a pound of butter, and a magical blend of lemon juice, vanilla, freshly grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice. All of those ingredients can be measured and weighed with perfect precision. But my mother put in another ingredient that knows neither measure nor weight: an extra dose of love.

After the ingredients, the recipe moves through all the steps. Lining the cake pan with parchment. Packing the mixture into the pan to achieve an even distribution of fruits, nuts, and batter. Baking at a low temp with a tray of water in the bottom of the oven.

Once the cake is done, it gets decorated with flowers made of pineapple wedges and cherries and returned to the oven for a few minutes, so the decorations will stick. When it emerges from the oven, another phase of the process begins. The cake cools on a rack until it can be turned out onto a towel, wrapped, and left to rest overnight, as if preparing for the transformative journey ahead.

The next morning, the ritual of wrapping and aging begins. A sheet of Saran Wrap is spread out on the counter, ready to embrace the cake. On top of it, cheesecloth soaked just right—not too wet, not too dry—with peach brandy is carefully arranged. The cake is placed at the center, a treasure waiting to be preserved. My mother’s instructions are precise:

“Fold the cheesecloth snugly around the cake, then do the same with the Saran Wrap, ensuring every inch is covered.”

Finally, the whole package is encased in heavy-duty foil, its armor for the weeks of aging ahead:

“Store in a cool room for two weeks,” her notes instruct. “Then carefully open, refresh the cheesecloth with more brandy, and rewrap.”

The process is repeated, patience layered upon patience, as the cake soaks in the flavors, deepening and maturing over time. Only then—after weeks of care and tending and extra doses of love all along the way—is the fruitcake ready for the refrigerator, where it will wait for its moment to be gifted or served.

Her final tip is practical, but it carries a poetic truth:

“The cake slices best when cold but eats best at room temperature.”

It’s a nod to the reward of patience—how time and care yield something truly remarkable.

If it sounds like a daunting recipe, it is. It’s not for the faint-of-heart baker. In fact, when I was getting ready to share the recipe, I was in the midst of baking fruitcakes myself. It occurred to me that perhaps I should take some photographs and include them beside the corresponding steps. I changed my mind, though, because my friend is an accomplished baker, and I figured that her bake would be as right as it could ever be for a first attempt.

After all, my mother didn’t get it right the first time. That’s why she spent decades perfecting her perfect fruitcake—a recipe honed with precision, patience, and a deep understanding of the process. Her fruitcake, like so much in life, wasn’t about instant gratification. It was about the slow, steadfast practice of doing something right, ingredient by ingredient, step by step, until it was as close to perfection as she could make it.

The lesson my mother’s fruitcake offers goes far beyond baking. It reminds me how patience and practice are at the heart of everything worth doing well. The recipe might call for precise measurements, but the same principle applies to so many aspects of life, where consistent effort, persistence, and time are the ingredients for success.

Take education, for instance. Mastering any skill—whether reading, writing, or ‘rithmetic—demands patience from both the student and the teacher. As an educator, I’ve seen firsthand how true understanding doesn’t come overnight. It’s built step by step, through trial, error, and those quiet “aha” moments that can’t be rushed. Teaching requires not only patience but also an extra dose of love: the care to meet students where they are, to encourage them when they stumble, and to celebrate their victories, big and small.

The same holds true in career paths. When I reflect on my time as a civil servant and later as an educator, I see how persistence shaped my journey. A fulfilling career isn’t something you stumble into—it’s built through detours and unexpected challenges that teach you resilience. Like fruitcake, careers need time to mature. And they need love: the passion for what you do, the commitment to make a difference, and the willingness to pour yourself into your work even when progress feels slow.

In personal goals, too, patience and practice are essential. Whether it’s pursuing health, creative aspirations, or even learning a new skill, success rarely comes in leaps and bounds. It’s incremental. It’s showing up, day after day, even when progress feels slow. And the secret ingredient? Love for the process itself—finding joy in the small victories, the moments when you feel yourself growing, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing you’re doing your best.

Relationships may be where patience and practice are most important of all. Building strong connections with others takes time, effort, and a willingness to grow alongside each other. Forgiveness, understanding, and communication are not one-time efforts; they’re practices we return to over and over. Like a fruitcake wrapped and aged, the best relationships deepen and become richer over time, with care, attention, and those extra doses of love that make them truly sweet.

Finally, spirituality. If there’s one area of life where practice and patience are truly a lifelong journey, it’s in connecting with something greater than ourselves. Clarity and peace often come in whispers, not shouts. Spiritual growth is about showing up—whether in prayer, meditation, or simply being present—and trusting that the sweetness will unfold when the time is right. I think of moments in my own life when answers came slowly, like the fruitcake aging in brandy, revealing their richness only after time and quiet reflection. And through it all, love is the thread: love for the journey, love for the questions as much as the answers, and love for the connection that binds us to the greater whole.

Each of these areas reminds me that, like my mother’s fruitcake, the things we cherish most in life aren’t created in a moment. They require steady hands, careful tending, and those extra doses of love that infuse meaning into every step of the process. Who would have thought that, all along, my mother was passing down a sweet recipe for life?