Cooks have a reputation for being superstitious to the point of paranoia. Reveal any recipe at your own risk: you could end up at a dinner party 3 months later eating the dish prepared with that same recipe. It might even taste better than you ever made it, all of the guests would be raving, and the hostess with the mostest would pass it off as her own. Can you imagine? The chutzpah! I had dinner at the home of one of my fairy godmothers not too long ago. She prepared an amuse bouche for all of us — a delightful chilled cucumber soup. I asked her about the ingredients: Me: “Is there cream in here?” Fairy Godmother: “No.” Me: “Is there yogurt?” FGM: “No.” Me: “That’s so strange — I’m amazed that it could have such a creamy taste.” FGM: “Oh…well, I did add some sour cream.” If you ask me, sour cream falls under the cream category. I understand that everyone wants to be the secretive and mysterious chef, the one who all the others want to emulate. Don’t worry — no one could ever even aspire to your culinary mastery, because no one knows what the hell
