Three of This Week's Secrets Were Recipes. I Am Not Printing Them.

three cards. one envelope. none of your business.

The Submit a Secret box got eleven entries this week. Two were about the cow. Four were about the festival, which I am still not covering. One was a grocery list somebody sent by mistake, and I hope you found the eggs.

Three were recipes.

A fig cake, written out in pencil, with a note that said my aunt is gone now and somebody should have this. A sweet potato pie with one ingredient crossed out so hard the pencil went through the card. And a gumbo, measurements and all, from a reader who wrote at the bottom: she would kill me, she is ninety one.

I am not printing them, and here is why.

In this basin a recipe is the only secret anybody keeps on purpose. People here will tell you about their divorce, their gallbladder and what their cousin did in 1994 before you have finished your coffee. Ask how much cayenne goes in the sauce piquante and they look at you like you asked for a kidney.

That is not stinginess. A family recipe is the one thing you can hand down exactly the way it was handed to you. Everything else changes. The card does not.

So here is what I did. I copied all three out by hand, the way they came. I put them in an envelope. The envelope is in a dry place at camp with the other things I do not publish. If you sent one and want it back, write, and I will mail it to you. If you sent one because nobody else will keep it, I will keep it.

To the reader with the gumbo: tell her. Tell her you sent it to a stranger on the internet who did not print it. She will be furious, and then she will be proud of you.

I relay. You decide. This week, I keep.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau