Do you have a Culinary Regret?

[GourmetLight$]

As I've been contemplating taking a Baking Class, I thought back to the Pennsylvania Autumn that my Mom tried to perfect the perfect pie crust to accompany her Apple Pie. "Is this crust flakier than the last?" "Does the crust seem too dry?" "Was it better with the lard or the Crisco?" "Can you taste the apples more, or the cinnamon?"

I wanted pie to just go away. I didn't learn a thing in that autumn of my 13th year, except that I HATED pie crust and HATED apple pie even more.

Now that I am baking-impaired, I have to admit I wished that I had learned how to bake.

Does anyone else have deep-down culinary regrets?

Carolyn

[tejon]

I came this () close to attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York years ago. Ever since, I've wondered a bit what would have been if I had gone.

[jvictor930]

I was offered an opportunity to travel to France for a culinary competition, all expense paid. It was one general culinary student, one baking and pastry student and one hospitality management student. However, due to work commitments, I forgot to get the necessary passport so I could put a copy of it with the packet. There wasn't enough time to get one, so the university had to go with the next student down. To add insult to injury, I was laid off from my job the next week due to an economic downturn!

[ellencho]

When I was in my teens my family would spend the week before school vacationing at a working dairy farm in Vermont (they supply milk to Cabot). The farmer's family offered delicious home cooked breakfasts and dinners every day. Everything they served was cooked from scratch and extraordinarily orgasmically good. One year I refused a slice of pumpkin chiffon pie because at the time my mom and I were obsessed with my weight and I didn't eat the pie to please her. Even now, I still remember the tall slice of pie with freshly whipped cream dolloped on top and it makes me sad.

[jgm]

I regret all of the money I have spent on quick meals out --fast food, in other words-- that could have been saved instead, and used toward the purchase of much better and more memorable meals.

Unfortunately, the last time I did this was less than 24 hours ago.

I have got to get my act together.

I also regret not having been more diligent about pursuing my interest in cooking. Maybe if I had, I'd be able to come up with more ideas for lunch, and not have to go out all the time.

[Jenikaye]

When I was in high school I had a huge crush on this guy. For his birthday, I made him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It was getting pretty late by the time I got to the frosting part. I can't remember what the recipe called for but I put granulated sugar in it. I mixed that frosting for what seemed like forever and it was still grainy....I was out of time though, I had to use it. I thought maybe the sugar would dissolve by the morning and the frosting would be smooth. That didn't happen, but I gave the guy the cake anyway. To this day, nearly 20 years later, I regret giving him that cake with the grainy frosting. He later told me that he and his friends just peeled the frosting off and ate the cake part....ugh!!!

[Daniel Rogov]

I'll have to borrow a line from the great critic Curnonsky: "My only regret is that I have only one stomach to give my profession"

[Milagai]

I'll have to borrow a line from the great critic Curnonsky: "My only regret is that I have only one stomach to give my profession"

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milagai

[Katie Nell]

I regret all of the money I have spent on quick meals out --fast food, in other words-- that could have been saved instead, and used toward the purchase of much better and more memorable meals.

Unfortunately, the last time I did this was less than 24 hours ago.

I have got to get my act together.

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You're not the only one! It's a never ending cycle!

[FistFullaRoux]

I regret not watching and helping my aunts and grandmother cook more. I've learned a lot and figured out certain other things, but some things I make will never taste quite right.

I also regret that batch of blue cinnamon rolls, but I am willing to write that off as an experiment. It's true. No one eats blue food, especially when it's not supposed to be blue.

[purplewiz]

The first time I ate at a certain Italian restaurant, the special of the day was langoustines. I'd never had them, but since it was the first time I'd ever eaten there, I thought I should order off the regular menu. (I don't know why.) What I ordered was very good indeed, but a friend ordered the langoustines, and when I saw them, I immediately wished I'd ordered them too.

So I figured the next time they had langoustines as the special, I'd order them then. To this date, they have never had them on the menu any time I've been there, some 15-odd years later.

I still regret not ordering those langoustines.

Marcia.

[mamacat]

My grandmother was a cook on the lake boats that ply the Great Lakes. As a result of a work-related injury, she came to live with us while I was still in elementary school. Needless to say, the quality of meals in our house went WAY up after she moved in. From then until she died when I was in my late teens, I had no interest in cooking whatsoever. To this day, I regret not having learned her secrets and try as I might, there are some things that I have simply never been able to duplicate - incredible light, fluffy donuts made with mashed potatoes; turkey and rice soup to die for and macaroni and cheese with oh so crispy crust but soft, mushy, cheesy delight inside. Wish you were here, Grandma!

[Marlene]

My father made the most incredible pig tails. He'd buy them in buckets at the Kitchener Farmer's Market. While I learned a bunch of his secrets, to this day my brother and I remember those tails and wish we could make them like he did.

I also regret that I never watched my mother make pie crust, which was one of the few things she made that was extrordinary. As I've attested to before, my pie crust sucks.

[jmsaul]

I can't decide whether I do. After reading the "What's the sickest you've ever gotten" thread, I'm kind of leaning toward no. But still...

We're in the Muslim Night Market in Xi'an, China. It's a touristy area, but despite the English on that one sign, most of the tourists are mainland Chinese.

The woman in the picture above is making these small, steamed cakes that kind of look like idlis. (You can see the wooden steamers at the left on her stand.) They're decorated with jewellike pieces of dried fruit and other less-recognizable things. They're utterly beautiful, and unlike anything else I've seen or heard of in China.

I passed on them, because I spent a lot of time in Mexico City when I was a kid so I'm risk-averse about street food, and I didn't want to spend the next few days being sick. It was probably a good decision, because I had one of the ten best meals of my life a couple nights later at a Szechuan restaurant in Beijing, and I wouldn't want to have missed that. And we went to a very nice place right off the night market that we were told was safe, and it was good. We have a lot of other great food memories from that trip (including some photos).

But I still wonder what the heck they were, and how they tasted, and if I could have gotten away with it...

Edited October 14, 2005 by jmsaul (log)

[jgarner53]

I regret not being adventurous enough as a kid to even TRY a single bite of the fresh abalone my dad would bring back from day diving trips. I don't even remember how my mom prepared it, except she'd pull out the meat mallet. I remember the little grid marks in the raw flesh. I could never be coaxed to eat even one little bite.

I went for fish sticks instead.

[Ktepi]

I remind my ex a couple times a year that on our first date, when I was cooking for her, she talked me out of buying lion and into buying rib-eye instead. We both regret that one, but at least she takes the blame.

I wish I'd gone to Uglesich's when I lived in New Orleans.

(I wish, in a different sense, that the most cash-poor years of my life weren't the ones I spent in such a restaurant-rich city; being broke improved my cooking, but I haven't been to many of the city's pricier joints. Still, Uglesich's I could have afforded.)

I wish I'd gotten into the habit of writing things down earlier, so that I knew the name of the Boston-area joint with the smoked bluefish cakes and the bottles of sriracha on the table.

I wish I'd bought a case of Cockta at that Bosnian joint on Bardstown in Louisville, and that I'd hoarded Pepsi Blue, Ruffles Buffalo Wing potato chips, and those hot dog-stuffed Tater Tot things (from Ore-Ida?) which were so good with a little Zatarain's mustard and hot sauce.

I wish I knew why that cake I made my mother as a surprise when I was eight or nine came out purple despite the lack of red or blue ingredients (much less purple ones).

[lala]

I also regret that batch of blue cinnamon rolls, but I am willing to write that off as an experiment. It's true. No one eats blue food, especially when it's not supposed to be blue.

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A friend and I experimented with blue pancakes once. Not a regret, just hilarious.

My regret? Not going to New Orleans last year... or ever...

[Soup]

I wish I was a bit more informed when we redid our kitchen.

[ruthcooks]

I wish I'd married a foodie...instead of someone who didn't eat lamb, fish, organ meats, oysters, lobster, asparagus, artichokes, avocado, the entire onion family, tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, raisins, grapefruit, rhubarb, spinach, cherries, broccoli, cooked cabbage, cauliflower, coconut, pineapple, eggplant, sauerkraut. And these are the ones I still remember, 15 years later.

No wonder I spent a lifetime cooking for other people.

[tsquare]

I remind my ex a couple times a year that on our first date, when I was cooking for her, she talked me out of buying lion and into buying rib-eye instead.  We both regret that one, but at least she takes the blame.

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Please tell me you meant loin not lion! And given that choice (or either) nothing wrong with a rib-eye.

Regrets? Hmmm. Being sick my one week in Paris. I don't think I visited a single bakery. Time to return, better informed and better off financially!

[Jmahl]

Greatest culinary regret, not somehow saving Grandma Minnie's cheese knishes and her chicken liver filled veronicas recipes. She cooked from memory, didn't measure in the formal sense. She said it just has to look right, feel right and taste right. She never learned to read or write and was very wise. A loss to humanity.

[Ktepi]

Please tell me you meant loin not lion! And given that choice (or either) nothing wrong with a rib-eye.

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No no, lion. There's nothing wrong with a rib-eye -- or loin -- but they aren't hard to find, either. Neither one of them's an opportunity missed. But lion? She moved out of Philly, neither of us has been there since, and while I've had plenty of ostrich, elk, venison, kangaroo, and so on in the eight years since then, I haven't seen lion for sale anywhere else. (It might have been mountain lion, I don't know. But I haven't seen that either.)

[tejon]

I haven't seen lion for sale anywhere else. (It might have been mountain lion, I don't know. But I haven't seen that either.)

I've eaten mountain lion, and would gladly pick the rib-eye. Carnivores are less than tasty.

[transfattyacid]

Mine would be not working here Le Pied De Cochon while i had the chance.

But you never know your luck. it could still happen.

[Siren]

I wish I had known that I would have fallen in love with cooking so much in my 20's... I would have fought w/my high school guidance counselor on getting into the cooking vocational program instead of being tracked into the academic/accelerated programs.