I NEED YOUR ADVICE, PLEASE · SKOOL OF FOOD WRITING

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14h (edited) • HOW TO COOK

I NEED YOUR ADVICE, PLEASE

Recipes are about creating a legacy, don't you think?

In my 'Write Recipes that Work' my guidance is not only how to write a recipe that works, but also how to write one that sounds delicious: inviting and one that needs to be used down the generations.

Or even featured in your cookbook or memoir? How much do you think I should charge for that module? At the moment it's a one-off price of $35. Then it's yours forever.

Here's a recipe written by dear friend and chef Arnold Tanzer. It's a spot-on example of how to write a recipe.

𝘚𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺

White asparagus arrives in the Netherlands with the strange dignity of visiting royalty and the emotional fragility of a peony. For six brief weeks the country loses its mind politely. Roadside farm stalls reopen.

Restaurants suddenly place vegetables in the centre of the plate as if they have discovered morality.

Entire villages perfume themselves with melted butter.

Then, almost immediately, it is over.

That is the nature of white asparagus. It emerges from sandy ground pale and tightly held, protected from sunlight entirely.

Handling it requires patience more than skill. The peeler moves downward in long careful strokes.

Fibres collect on the board like pencil shavings.

One missed strip and the stalk punishes you at the table later.

White asparagus remembers negligence.

The cooking water matters. Salt first. Then a teaspoon of sugar and a small splash of vinegar. A knob of butter. Not enough to taste individually — only enough to steady the whole thing. The sugar rounds the bitterness at the edges. The vinegar sharpens the sweetness. Dutch cooking rarely announces its intelligence; it prefers understatement.

Nearby, potatoes simmer toward collapse.

Butter melts slowly in another pan until the water disappears and the milk solids begin drifting toward hazelnut territory. 𝘞𝘦𝘨𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘳. Butter pushed just beyond.

The asparagus arrives steaming, carrying the faint mineral smell of wet sand and warm fields. Potatoes beside it, splitting open at the edges. Ruffled shaved Ham softening from the residual heat. Egg scattered over everything, in yellow and white fragments that resemble spring light through curtains.

Then the butter — hot enough to gloss the surface, to sink into the potatoes, to stain the plate in widening golden circles.

A plate assembled entirely from soft things.And perhaps that softness is the point.

Because the season ends almost as quickly as it begins — traditionally on Saint John’s Day, June 24th — when the fields are allowed to rest and the Dutch collectively agree that enough is enough. No stretching the season. No forcing abundance. The pleasure exists precisely because it leaves.

The meal is eaten quietly, almost always too quickly.

Outside, bicycles continue passing.

Inside, butter slips out of its heat.

𝗗𝗨𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗔𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗦 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗛𝗔𝗠, 𝗘𝗚𝗚 & 𝗕𝗨𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥

1.5 kg White asparagus.

800 g Nicola Potatoes.

200 g Shaved Ham.

4 Boiled Eggs, chopped.

Small handful Parsley, chopped.

Fresh Nutmeg.

250 g Butter.

1 knob Butter.