If you’ve ever searched for an online recipe, you understand the level of commitment involved and are nodding in tacit agreement. People don’t give out recipes as freely as they once did. Now, you must work for it.

To begin, scroll through pages of teasers. A partial recipe may be spotted early in the post. Don’t be fooled! Keep reading. Several improvised versions will be discovered along the way. Choose wisely. Because an important, but ill-timed caveat might be hidden at the bitter end: May cause intestinal trouble!

I recently made the mistake of typing “Best Fried Chicken Recipe” into the search engine. This opened up a proverbial can of worms, which admittedly would have been easier to swallow than wading through 3.5 million suggestions. Turns out, everyone has the best recipe and they’ll write a dramatic culinary novella to prove it.

I appreciate the wistful memories of thirty different ways your Meemaw made fried chicken and the exhaustive recollection of family meals. The risqué photo gallery of poultry in every state of undress was entertaining, and the suggestion of substituting lard with something less deadly was helpful. But I never found the actual recipe.

My air fryer came with an instructional book comprised of 99 pages of warnings on ways I could injure myself or burn down the house. The final page gave one measly recipe in #9 font. This left me no choice than to turn to the Internet for advice.

I searched online for cooking time and temperature for Air Fryer French toast. One post was dedicated to the unhealthy adoration that this individual has for their kitchen appliance. “Let me tell you how much I love, love, LOVE my air fryer!” While another took a more simplistic approach with a To Die For! French Toast recipe that was given 5-stars. Everyone knows the basic components of French toast: bread, milk, and eggs—the same ingredients that send people stampeding to the grocery store at the mention of bad weather.

I scanned for key words while frantically scrolling through the post. There was a partial recipe sandwiched between the history of French toast and an exhaustive dissertation of varieties of bread that can be used: Brioche, Sourdough, French Baguette, or Challah. Included was a step-by-step instructional video for warming up French toast in the microwave. But lacking was the essential information: temperature and cooking time.

Add to the mix an extra helping of gastronomical know-it-alls. Culinary keyboard warriors give snarky online reviews, causing caustic infighting amongst self-proclaimed experts. No expletive or insult was spared while arguing about grams to cups conversion over a sugar cookie recipe.

My Mother’s large Sicilian family didn’t rely on written recipes. Instead, generations of recipes were stored in the ol’ noodle for safekeeping. Shaking their heads in disbelief from the great beyond, my ancestors watched as I strayed from the familiar taste of tradition and went surfing online for a coastal pasta recipe. I could feel their ghostly displeasure, served with a quick hand gesture up the neck and off the chin. “Nun sinni parra!”

I’ve already angered my family by making your stupid seafood pasta, but as I’m about to take a hearty bite, I read the disclaimer. There, noted below the recipe was a confession that they don’t care for the aforementioned version of Spaghettini alla Siracusana because Uncle Nicoli from the Old Country said it tasted like “merda.”

Ptooey!

Nobody has this kind of time. Recipes should be abbreviated and fit onto a 3×5 index card. If there’s room for a personal touch, perhaps an added salutation: Enjoy! Bon Appetit! Or Mangia! And for shit’s sake people, quit listing substitutions. After substituting too many ingredients, what you ultimately have is a wound salve from the 1800’s instead of a meal.

Pulling a cookbook off the shelf, I blew dust off its long-neglected spline. For generations, the fictitious Betty Crocker was a household staple and trusted confidant. The old broad reliably gave simple ingredients and simple instructions. Now that’s something I can sink my teeth into.