You see and read the same recipes over and over again on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, NY Times and, yes, even Facebook! (I think the current trend is carbonara?)

How many carbonara recipes have you seen in the last week? I have seen too many, unfortunately. Of course, you have your different interpretations of carbonara sauce out there which range from 100% vegan to 1,000% classical (at times puritanical). I’m not ragging on carbonara (or its many many interpretations), but I am pointing out something that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine: recipes over technique. If you don’t have a technique, you don’t really have a recipe.

Why not? Because nowadays recipes are advertised more than cooking techniques. Recipes are the foundation to any dish and can be interpreted however necessary but the technique is really EVERYTHING! Technique is really only achieved through practice, learning and observing the experts with every trade from farming, to coloring hair to teaching and selling, etc. For example: you cannot write if you don’t read. You cannot produce an exquisitely-creamy-glossy-savory-decadently rich carbonara sauce without a technique is my point here. If you don’t have a technique, you don’t have much of a trade (or in this case a recipe).

If we didn’t have our own specialized techniques at the Saucery, our food products would be mediocre and you wouldn’t buy them. Amirite?

Anyone can copy the Mona Lisa, but it doesn’t make you da Vinci. We all know that person who when dining out, or strolling through a museum will say: “Oh, I can do that” and my reply to that person will always be the same: “Can you, though? Probably not.

Peeled Midnight Romas, beautifully and masterfully preserved in their juice. From our 2022 harvest season.

Here are some recipes using our seasonal canned tomatoes