There's plenty of good recipes to be found and tried on Pinterest. Thanks to being my mother's sous chef most of my life, I have enough kitchen know-how to avoid the obvious culinary miscalculations. That said, there are myriad blunders waiting to happen on Pinterest. But I'm not such a food snob that I insist on organic shit (scientifically, EVERYTHING WITH A CARBON ATOM IN IT IS ORGANIC), or delight in over-priced artisan brands (it's OK to indulge when it matters, but not everyday), or look down my nose at a box of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese (mmmm, mac 'n cheese). However, I judge the hell out of the inane cooking obsessions people have these days. And yes, I'm blaming the millennials because more than a third of Pinterest users are under age 30.
NOT EVERYTHING CAN (OR SHOULD) BE MADE IN A FUCKING CROCK POT
Look, unless you don't own an oven, these kinds of "set it and forget it" recipes are totally unnecessary. I love my crock pot too, but Jesus Pleasus I also love for all my food to have a texture other than that of strained carrots. Because that's what happens when you cook shit for 8 hours: everything turns into a relatively uniform sludge. That's well and good for chili or stew or coq au vin, because those things need time to soften and absorb the surrounding flavors. But just because you dump dinner all the same ingredients into one big bowl doesn't mean you'll get anything the resembles the real deal. For example, NOTHING you love at a Chinese take-away is cooked in a crock pot. It's all FRIED in some form or another, and the sauce is added at the end, which makes it crispy and delicious when you dump it on rice. What makes it tasty is the difference of texture in each bite. I'm not a 6-month old. I have a full set of teeth. I don't need ALL MY FOOD pre-digested in a ceramic stomach while I'm at work. I can handle a frying pan, damnit.
I mean, BREAD. In a slow cooker. French Toast. In a slow cooker. The Italian blood in me is very angered by lasagna in a slow cooker. WTF.
And don't get me started on stroganoff. So many war crimes have been committed on Pinterest in the name of "easy" stroganoff. My guess is that most people on Pinterest have never had a real stroganoff in their entire lives and wouldn't know it if a can of mushroom soup hit them in the head, because that's what I am going to chuck at you right now if you think that's an essential ingredient in stroganoff. Here's what's in the incredible stroganoff my mom always made:
Beef, onion, sour cream, white wine, butter, mushrooms, nutmeg, salt, pepper, basil, noodles.
And guess what? You use a goddamned frying pan (cast iron is best!) to cook it. And then you dump it on noodles you boil in a *gasp* separate pot. Holy shit. Texturesssssss.
STOP PUTTING AVOCADOS IN EVERYTHING
Why oh why oh why? Why ruin perfectly good cheese or chocolate with friggen avocados? No.
Just. Step. Away. From. The. Cutting. Board. It will NEVER replace cheese. NOTHING will ever replace cheese. So get over it. You're going to make a lot of people cry if you keep doing this.
CHIA
In my day, chia was the shit you spread on terra cotta pets, not dumped in yogurt or consumed as a beverage. Period.
This is the foodie equivalent of an old man yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN, you hipster punks!" I realize this. But at least I'm eating chocolate cupcakes that weren't slow-cooked, and without a single avocado or chia seed in it. And it TASTES DELICIOUS.
PEACE.
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