10 Cents Per Copycat

In the 10th grade I wore an array of Abercrombie & Fitch sweaters in mustards and burnt sienna. I bought smart corduroys and tan shoes. I went from a “construction worker lunch pail”-toting, pleather skirt wearing-girl who dreamed of owning a white Jeep to a girl full of pep who picked apples and went on haunted hayrides.

How did I make such a giant, lame leap for womankind? 

Well, I wanted to be just like everyone else, and everyone else really liked overpriced itchy sweaters with stripes.  We also lived in New England where picking apples and frolicking among leaves that match your sweater is completely acceptable. Giant plastic rings and bright blue eyeshadow however? Not so much.

Like all the strong women who paved the way for me in the fight for women’s rights, I copied the females around me and tried to fit in.

Truly revolutionary stuff.

Eventually I realized there was no use squeezing into a sweater that gave me hives. But I still copy today, or attempt to. Sometimes I fail, and sometimes I can’t even try. This is a food blog, and I’m supposed to be coming up with new and exciting recipes, but the honest truth is that I love making other people’s recipes. I buy cookbooks by the boatload. I ogle fancy raw recipes.

This week I copied an insane recipe for Portabello Kebabs with Asian Slaw.

I encourage you to copy it as well. Or adapt it and make it your own, if you’re cool with forging a path no one has walked before. No $100 sweaters are required.

I’d like to copy tonight’s massive dinner salad every night for the rest of my life. Just doing everything I can for a woman’s right to salad.

I’d really like to copy Louis Pug’s laid back attitude:

All snuggly at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday:

All “you can’t be a pug, mommy! That is so not a good look on you.”

Please! What does he know? He can’t even buy sweaters.