"These are the best chocolate cookies I've ever had!"  she said.  "Can I have the recipe?"

"Of course."  I made her a copy.  It's a fairly standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I have added a few personal twists to over many, many years of trial and error.

I saw her again a week later.

"Your recipe doesn't work."  she said "I made those cookies and they sucked."

"What do you mean, it doesn't work?  You've eaten my cookies.  You know the recipe works."

" No, it doesn't.  You must have gotten lucky."

"Lucky?  I make those cookies once a week and they work every time.  Did you follow the recipe?"

"Of course I did!  Are you accusing me of lying?"

"No, of course not.  There's nothing wrong with the recipe.  Maybe it was something else.  Is your oven working properly?  Temp controls okay?"

"There's nothing wrong with my oven.  It's that recipe; it doesn't work."

"So you started with one stick of margarine and one half cup of Crisco?"

"Well, no.  I don't believe in margarine; it's not natural.  And Crisco?  Eeew.  I figured I could make the cookies healthier, so I substituted olive oil."

"Oh.  Did you let the eggs warm to room temperature before you used them?"

"No.  I didn't want to wait all day.  I just made the cookies.  Jeez, they're cookies, not brain surgery."

"Did you use half white and half brown sugar?"

"No.  I'm trying to cut down on my use of processed sugar.  I've used too much white sugar in my life."

"Did you at least use the brand of brown sugar I specified?  I don't know why it should matter,  but  they always turn out chewier with that brand."

"No.  It can't possibly make a difference what brand of brown sugar I use.  The recipe just sucks."

"Did you throw in a dash of nutmeg?"

"I didn't have any."

"Did you use real vanilla?"

"God, no!  Do you have any idea how expensive that stuff is?  I had imitation vanilla."

"Did it ever occur to you that real vanilla is expensive because it's worth it?"

"Hey, don't yell at me because your recipe sucks."

"You didn't use my recipe!  I can't imagine what kind of abomination you whipped up in your kitchen but it sure as heck wasn't by following my recipe."

"Of course I followed your recipe!  I just changed a few minor details.  A recipe with a solid foundation would've been able to withstand such variations."

"Not in the real world!  You can't use olive oil, no white sugar, fake vanilla, no nutmeg and cold eggs and expect to get anything remotely resembling the cookies I gave you last week!  Next thing you're going to tell me is you used imitation chocolate chips!"

"I would not.  I know you can't make decent cookies with fake chocolate chips."


What has any of this got to do with free markets? Every time I hear some tool on the news saying that the current economic mess is proof that capitalism and the free market don't work, I hear the voice of this idiot blaming her cookies on my recipe.

 

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