On Google recipes

Angry because woman walked
in front of her golf cart, she
deliberately runs over her.

To me, google is even more mysterious than electricity. I have no idea how it works. No idea of how it even could work. How is it that you can type in most anything you can think of and almost immediately find it. And not only can you find it, you can probably be absolutely inundated with it. I have found using google to be both a blessing and so overly helpful as to be frightening.

I like to cook, at least sometimes. Of course I can’t even begin to compete with my wife who is a life-long, serious cook, and now a chef. But as she is often gone I delight in cooking things I like that she would never eat, like liver and onions, pigs’ feet, lutefisk, stuff like that. We have a plethora of cookbooks, all kinds of cookbooks, shelves of cookbooks, even boxes of cookbooks there is no other room for. I like to use cookbooks, or at least I did before I found google. No matter how many cookbooks you have, you can’t even come close to competing with google for recipes. Are you aware, for example, that if you look up something as common as roast chicken, you will learn there are 8,830,000 recipes. I’m not entirely certain how you would find out if this is true or not, unless perhaps you were willing to devote an entire lifetime to this topic. Even if you understand you can’t possibly use so many recipes, you will find a minimum of 540 readily available. I find this unsettling. I just wanted a recipe for roast chicken, I didn’t want to have to choose between more than I even have time to consider. I might as well just have looked in a cookbook. It would not be nearly as frustrating.

I grant you that roast chicken is a pretty common dish, which no doubt explains the millions of recipes. Out of curiosity I typed in “tripe” (even though I never eat the stuff). Would you believe there are 2,270,000 recipes for tripe? If you find that sort of mind numbing as I do, type in “pickled pigs feet.” According to google there are an unbelievable 5,320,000 recipes for pigs feet. I began to get really suspicious at this point, and I am beginning to suspect that google is spitting out both “pigs,” and “feet,” as well as “pigs feet,” and “pickled pigs feet.” But how am I to know? I couldn’t possibly pursue over 5 million entries. I have found, pursuing this line of inquiry, there are some recipes that are somewhat more manageable. For example, there are only 1,190,000 recipes for pot roast. Whew, I’m glad I found something at least a bit more realistic (but not much more). Going down the scale, you will be relieved to know there are only 768,000 recipes for poached eggs, 468,000 for salami sandwiches, 285,000 for Lutefisk, and best of all by far, a paltry 22,900 for apple pie.

I must confess, I cannot deal with google when it comes to cooking. It is too overwhelming, there are far too many recipes, too much choice. When I want to cook and need a recipe I don’t need overkill, I just need a single recipe. While I’m certain that some recipes may well be more delicious or easier to prepare than others, I don’t want the hassle of having to make too many decisions. Frankly, I find it absurd there are so many recipes for roast chicken. I mean, after all, it’s just a chicken, you put it in a pan, stick it in the oven, take it out a hour later, and voila, roast chicken. The only thing all these recipes add is something to gussy it up a bit: garlic, lemon grass, oyster stuffing, mushrooms, a bit of tarragon, thyme, some kind of fancy spice rub, whatever. The more I think about it, I don’t really believe there are over 8 million ways to improve on a roast chicken. When you find out, please let me know. I would also like to know how many recipes call for chicken breasts (which I regard as tasteless and inedible). I’m afraid even to look.
I have been challenging google for months, trying to find a word or phrase that cannot be found there. So far I have not been able to find something that google does not already know about, and usually has far more information than I would ever want. The temptation is to cheat and use nonsense syllables, but that would not be sporting. I lost count of my failures somewhere back around 250, that is to say, google 250, Morialekafa 0. Some of my attempts only resulted in displaying my ignorance, as, for example, when I thought I had a sure winner with “milkfish bellies.” But I do not intend to ever give up, there just has to be something google has not already found. If you find something you will receive a bona fide Morialekafa championship certificate (that I will create upon proof of your achievement).

It rained hard most of the day. I have cabin fever and addled brain syndrome. Is anyone still solvent?

LKBIQ:
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

TILT:
The word “fighter,” in the realm of aircraft, first meant a two-seater plane with sufficient lift to carry a machine-gun, its operator, and a pilot. Such a plane existed as early as 1914 but was too slow to be effective.