The Mennobrarian

The Recipe Lady

09:59, Thursday, January 3, 2008 .. Posted in Library Life .. 2 comments .. Link

Here at the library, we encounter many amusing characters, and like most libraries, even have our “regulars” who visit every week. One of the most interesting, at least to me, is The Recipe Lady.

The Recipe Lady calls a few times a week and asks us to print off copies of recipes from the website of her favorite television cooking show. Often, she is watching the show as she speaks to us and is only able to give a vague description of what is being cooked. Sometimes she can remember the theme of the show, or what time it was on, and then it is easy to figure out what she is looking for. Sometimes she only wants some clarification on a particular step of the recipe, which is impressive because these recipes look difficult. They often employ advanced baking techniques and specialized ingredients. It’s amazing that someone is cooking these dishes on television and making them look so easy that a retiree sitting in an armchair, watching food shows all day, says to themselves, “Let me just call the library and have them print off this recipe, since I might not remember step 27, where you hand knead the almond paste beurre blanc for the third layer of the beignet strudel.”

The Recipe Lady has always struck me as a little eccentric, but it seems no one else thinks so. Maybe I only think that because she frequently mistakes me on the telephone for another librarian she thinks I sound exactly like, and I am unable to convince her otherwise.

“Hello??? Is this Xiang Mi? Hi there, Xiang Mi!”

You’ll just have to take my word for it that Xiang Mi, with her thick Chinese accent, does not sound much like me, nor I like her.

Recently I noticed that my reference transactions with the Recipe Lady haven’t been going as smoothly. The past few times she has called, I have tried in vain to find the recipe she is looking for and have been unable to locate it. In the past, they have always been somewhat quick and easy to locate. Now, though she gives specific clues about the dish being made, the recipe I come up with is always wrong, leaving us to sift through dozens of recipes on the show’s website and try to guess which dish this lady is looking for.

“Now they’re heating the caramel on a flat dish…” she'll say, as she's in front of the television.

“Is it a dish or baking sheet?”

“You know, like a flat dish that looks like a baking sheet.”

“Uh, okay. Because it says here that that the apples are on a baking sheet---“

“There’s no apples.”

“Oh.”

It’s frustrating for both of us. Then, last week she called and told me what they were making, and how easy it looked to make, but never asked for the recipe. She might be reaching that level of familiarity some regulars do where they come in or call just to talk to one of us. That's fine by me, because I'd rather talk to her than the Harry Potter Guy, The Scary Long Haired Guy, or Cranky Internet Woman.

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The Mennobrarian

The Recipe Lady

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