this is, like, so my life

SAD TALE
(With an Even Sadder Moral)

Susan is one of those accurate cooks
—Meticulous, she, to a fault.
She follows the rules in her recipe books
And she measures, so help me, the salt.
When the rule demands lemon, she doesn't use lime;
And when it says chervil, she'd never touch thyme;
And when it says sift, Susan sifts with a fervor
And beat for 3 hours doesn't even unnerve her.
And when she begins to construct you a meal,
Interrupt her, my friend, if you dare;
For cooking to Susan is earnest and real
And compounded of patience and prayer.

Now, Katie's is one of the lighter approaches;
She moves in an easier sphere.
From the sauces she makes to the hen-fruit she poaches
She cooks, as the phrase goes, by ear.
Her way with directions is handsome and wide;
She couldn't repeat you a dish if she tried;
When the rule says Madeira, she'll reach for the brandy
Or possibly port, if she has any handy.
She'll chat of aesthetics, she'll whistle and sing
As she whips you a major soufflé,
For cooking, to Kate, is a casual thing . . .
As free as a breeze and as gay.

And which is the product that's perfectly awful?
The cordon bleu dishes are whose?
Though I hate to admit it, Kate's shouldn't be lawful
. . . While the lyric creations are Sue's.

-P. Bracken, in the December 1949 issue of Gourmet magazine, found by happenstance