I do most of the cooking in my family, and I’m one of those people who will often look at recipes when I’m doing something new, but mostly just do simple dishes and wing it. I’ll often try and incorporate things we have. All of which is to say, there’s a nontrivial amount of experimenting, which isn’t always a good thing.

I remember serving a noodle casserole, and there were some scrunched up faces around the table. My wife asked what the fuck the chewy things were, and I said smoked oysters (which the family loves). They’ve made fun of me for years on that one

In all honesty, I thought it tasted pretty good.