Recipes

I cannot understand how cookbooks figure the stated prep times in recipes. A typical recipe declares that the dish is "a snap to prepare: prep 10 minutes, cook 30 minutes." Yeah, right. It takes me longer than the prep time just to find all my utensils and ingredients.

One recipe I tried recently was shared by a woman who said she likes to make it when she's "short on time on a weeknight." So far, so good, I thought. Who isn't short on time on a weeknight? Let's see what she's got. When I finally finished making the dish (yes, just one dish, not a whole meal), it was so late my husband said he would just have it for breakfast. And I thought, who are these women who work such miracles when they're short on time? They must be formidable when they actually have time to cook.

If cookbooks and magazines were honest about this issue -- say, if they were required by a Truth in Preparation Law to disclose actual recipe times -- this is what recipes would look like:

Look for pan: 10 min.
Realize pan is in dishwasher, dirty. Wash: 2 min.
Realize you forgot to soften butter. Put in microwave: 2 min.
Answer phone, explaining why your all-hardwood-floor home does not need a carpet-cleaning service: 10 min.
Scrub vegetables vigorously under cold running water to remove all suggestion of bacteria: 15 min.
Attempt to cut vegetables with dull knife. Try remaining knives. All dull. Remember that you were going to order a new knife set on the Web. Go to computer: 30 min.
Wait for new knife set to arrive: 16 days

Total Cook Time: 10 min.
Total Prep Time: 2 1/2 weeks

Even after you get your sharp new knives, it takes a while to cut and chop. So this means, for instance, that if you plan to make a stir-fry Thanksgiving weekend (great way to use up all that leftover turkey!), you need to begin chopping your veggies by the start of school in August.

Of course, they don't write recipes like this because people would throw out their cookbooks and magazines and order carryout. Total time: 3 min. (+ delivery)