The strangest substitution I have ever heard of

I was reading the online reviews of a scallop recipe that called for Pernod and came across this strange substitution...

"I didn't have Pernod so I added a tablespoon of Peach Schnapps"

Makes perfect sense to me. They both begin with a "P" so they must both taste the same. I wonder what this person would use as a substitute for wine? Whiskey maybe?

[Jenise]

That's a scream! And that person needs to have his/her scallop license taken away....

Ha! That is funny.
It reminds me of some of that Epicurious reviews that I just love:

I don't see why everyone thinks this recipe is so good. My husband and I and all of our guest thought it was awful. I did make a few substitutions... I didn't have any pasta so I used wild rice, I didn't have any ancho powder so I used a chopped green bell pepper, I was out of chicken so just used a little leftover meatloaf that I had in the fridge. We don't drink so I didn't have any dry white wine, but used some pineapple juice and decided to throw in a few chunks of pineapple...........

One that I can never quite manage to forget -- my Mom was making cookies. She was out of vanilla. She used artificial Maple flavoring instead. They were some truly strange cookies...

I remember running out of milk one late night while craving a bowl of cereal and somehow thinking, "there's always water! It can't be TOO bad. After all, isn't water just milk without the dairy?"

I still have no idea what I was thinking. I can't even remember if I finished the entire bowl. Somehow I doubt it. Since that brilliant substitution I've learned that whenever you're out of milk late at night and a bowl of cocoa pebbles can't wait, just pretend the cereal is sunflower seeds or something and eat it dry...

Jeff

Weirdest for me was not with food but wine. One night we were entertaining friends and sharing with them several Krug Champagnes. One of my guests peeked into the regular refrigerator and found four bottles of Cava there. The Cava had been purchased as a mini-gift for my two young nieces who were having a party the next night. My guest carried out the bottles and said that "Rogov's holding back on the good stuff" and proceded to open one bottle of the Cava for which I had paid the magnificent price of NIS 99 (about US$25 for all four), tasted it and pronounced it far better than the "French junk"

When it came time for the canapes I made sure to top his blinis and creme fraiche with salmon eggs and not the Servuga Caviar that the others enjoyed. La revenge, c'est tres, tres douce!

Best
Rogov

How heavily did you salt his canapes first, Rogov?

(Sheesh, I used to think it was safe to eat around here. No more.)

How heavily did you salt his canapes first, Rogov?

LOL.... I did not. I may be nasty at times but I am not cruel.

Best
Rogov

My good friend, Michael Anthony, is always taking recipes from me and then "adding his special touch". With the Burssels sprout recipe (on another thread) he decided to prepare it last weekend. He was so proud to call and tell me how good it turned out. Of course, he didn't have any cream, so he used milk. To thicken it a bit, he added cheese and thought it didn't need the lemon! With my cornbread salad recipe, he dices the vegetables to a fine mince*, throws in a little corn and the left over carrots from another meal -- and, of course, he doesn't particularly care for the beans. He can do whatever he wants with the recipes once they leave my hand. However I hate the fact that he tells people they are Jo Ann's recipes. What he prepares bears no resemblence to anything I would prepare and serve to another person.

*I am very particular about my vegetable prep. There is a difference in the mouth feel between a sliver, a thin slice, a slice, a chunky dice, a medium dice and a mince. Arrrrggggg!!

[Jenise]

He can do whatever he wants with the recipes once they leave my hand. However I hate the fact that he tells people they are Jo Ann's recipes.

Same here! And I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of pot lucks, so there's a lot of recipe sharing. I've seen my own dishes come back at me months later and I wouldn't recognize them!

I can be the tweaking queen, however, if I ask for a recipe and the person is gracious enough to give it to me, I will make it exactly as written. Then and only then, do I make some tweaks, if needed. One has to understand that butter, lemons, nuts, flour, meats, chocolate, almost any ingredient is different in my part of the country than say, Texas or New York. Brands are different, some folks might use quality ingredients and the next might use a lesser quality. I've had folks tell me I withheld ingredients, because what they made was not as good as what I made. When I find out they used a cheap margarine in place of my expensive brand of butter, I let them know that I specified brands when I thought it was very important. Some people just don't get it.

I had a dear friend ask me kind of hair products I used...she did not want brand names, just what I used. Good grief. Probably only the ladies on this site will understand what this means!

Jo Ann, having met Michael Anthony I can believe that of him! Please tell him Gail and I said "hi". And I know this is off topic, but I've had salmon twice in as many weeks at holiday parties, and while good, Gail and I agreed it didn't hold a candle to yours!

Jo Ann, having met Michael Anthony I can believe that of him! Please tell him Gail and I said "hi". And I know this is off topic, but I've had salmon twice in as many weeks at holiday parties, and while good, Gail and I agreed it didn't hold a candle to yours!

Yes, Robert, I knew you would have an appreciation for the experience. My meal table does host a cast of characters. And, you haven't met Mama yet. She prepares some of my recipes too, only with the bargain ingredients she gets out of the clearance station on the meat counter and will substitute canned tuna in a dish I made with fresh Ahi!!

Yes, that salmon recipe gets lots of good reviews. I got it online a number of years ago, but it has undergone a few transformations to suit my taste. Glad you and Gail liked it (I could tell you did by the number of times you went back for more). Give Gail a shout-out from me.

He can do whatever he wants with the recipes once they leave my hand. However I hate the fact that he tells people they are Jo Ann's recipes.

Same here! And I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of pot lucks, so there's a lot of recipe sharing. I've seen my own dishes come back at me months later and I wouldn't recognize them!

Right. This VERY thing just happend to me last week. I wanted her to stop giving me credit for it, as it was nothing like what I make.

[Jenise]

He can do whatever he wants with the recipes once they leave my hand. However I hate the fact that he tells people they are Jo Ann's recipes.

Same here! And I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of pot lucks, so there's a lot of recipe sharing. I've seen my own dishes come back at me months later and I wouldn't recognize them!

Right. This VERY thing just happend to me last week. I wanted her to stop giving me credit for it, as it was nothing like what I make.

But the rub is that, typically speaking, these people quite earnestly, genuinely and without malice think they've DUPLICATED your dish. For some other event I trained two other women to make a salad that was to be a phyllo pastry cup filled with layers of potato and brie cheese nestled in an arugula salad. The phyllo cup required cutting a phyllo pastry square 5", forming it in a cupcake tin, then filling it. It needed to be 5" so it would have this wonderful scarf hem edge. Leaves of white ornamental kale were to be on the edge of the plate, making a snowflake pattern. I guess the first thing they decided was that measuring took too much time and they could just eyeball it, but as they cut their squares got smaller and smaller, most ending up just around 4" and they turned out squat little phyllo cups desperately in need of that last inch. The second thing they decided was that handplacing those leaves was too much trouble, so they just tossed them with the salad! So the carefully cut, composed salad I made that they oohed and aahed over and volunteered to help with to my eyes only bore only a passing resemblance to the dish they'd volunteered to do. But they thought they nailed it.

So the carefully cut, composed salad I made that they oohed and aahed over and volunteered to help with in my eyes actually bore only a passing resemblance to the dish they'd volunteered to do, but they thought they nailed it.

Yeah! Whaddup wit dat?! Just what sense of taste, required preparation and prsentation don't they get?! Or, as in Michael-Anthony's case, is "close is close enough" their credo?

[Jenise]

So the carefully cut, composed salad I made that they oohed and aahed over and volunteered to help with for the party in my eyes actually bore only a passing resemblance to the dish they'd volunteered to do, but they thought they nailed it.

Yeah! Whaddup wit dat?! Just what sense of taste, required preparation and prsentation don't they get?! Or, as in Michael-Anthony's case, is "close is close enough" their credo?

I think that's exactly it. And though these people we speak of usually have the best of intentions, they don't have the taste/visual food memory to help them remember exactly they're aiming for. You and I suffer the reverse: we know all too well every detail about what we're striving for, and we chastise ourselves for every little imperfection.