Teaching beginner cooks includes being completely transparent about my own flops. It happens to everyone. The more you cook, the more new recipes you attempt or adjustments you make to existing recipes, the more mistakes you are likely to make.

Some of my notable fails include a family favorite chocolate cake that boiled over in the oven about 1 hour before my daughter’s birthday guests were set to arrive (Kroger bakery to the rescue), a daal that blew the lid off my pressure cooker (my husband threw out the pressure cooker and made me promise ‘Never again!’ to try using a pressure cooker), and another daal that I christened “Oh My Gujurati” but really, the recipe just needs to go away. Like, forever. And wipe the cache.

For a recent Wiess cookout, I wanted to take a vegan cookie. The ingredients I substituted looked the same, but the chemistry just didn’t work out. The cookie dough never actually became ‘dough.’ Instead of cookies, I had something more like granola.

That recipe is not even going into this blog. But here is a photo so you will remember that your guru also makes mistakes. And by the way, Alison Andrews’ Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are amazing. Use her recipe instead!