I just received my copy of Associated Press Food Editor Cecily Brownstone’s 1972 cookbook. She begins with a section called “Confessions of a Food Editor.” It was written in a Q-and-Q format.

One of the questions was: “Where do you get your recipes?”

She responded: “From the same place Fannie Farmer (whose cookbook was first published in 1896) got hers – from the cooks of her own period and those who went before plus her own ingenuity.

When I was till new to the food business, I once complained that all recipes stem from the same basic rules and so a food writer must inevitably rely on those. When Irma Rombauer – author of the incomparable “Joy of Cooking” and my great and good friend – heard my plaint, she gave me a piece of advice. “Just be a good pirate, Cecily!” said Irma. To me being a good pirate means eschewing what I call typewriter-cooking.”

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I just received my copy of Associated Press Food Editor Cecily Brownstone’s 1972 cookbook. She begins with a section called “Confessions of a Food Editor.” It was written in a Q-and-Q format.

One of the questions was: “Where do you get your recipes?”

She responded: “From the same place Fannie Farmer (whose cookbook was first published in 1896) got hers – from the cooks of her own period and those who went before plus her own ingenuity.

When I was till new to the food business, I once complained that all recipes stem from the same basic rules and so a food writer must inevitably rely on those. When Irma Rombauer – author of the incomparable “Joy of Cooking” and my great and good friend – heard my plaint, she gave me a piece of advice. “Just be a good pirate, Cecily!” said Irma. To me being a good pirate means eschewing what I call typewriter-cooking.”

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