In Scotch we trust

I've already mentioned how much I like Junior League cookbooks. The Southern ones, in particular, really make my thing sing. I simply can't travel to the south without looking for another Jr. League cookbook to add to my collection.

The problem is that the League is really starting to take its cookbooks seriously. They've gotten all foodie. I mean, except for the little blurb in the front about "promoting voluntarism" (the Junior League being the only entity that uses the term "voluntarism" instead of "volunTEERism"--but I digress) and maybe some information about what makes their particular city unique, Junior League cookbooks are starting to look like something Nigella Lawson or Martha Stewart or somebody like that would produce.

This is all wrong. Junior League cookbooks aren't supposed to be huge coffee table volumes full of air-brushed colored photographs of meals that no one in her right mind would ever attempt to cook. Let Martha and Nigella do that. I want little spiral-bound volumes with no pictures and three essentially identical recipes for something like banana nut bread. And I want weird recipes like the one that Mrs. William C. Prewett (Karen Padgett) saw fit to have included in Charleston Receipts Repeats, the tome where I found today's winner:

Embassy Dip
"The scotch makes it!"

• Easy • Serves: 12+ • May Prepare Ahead

1 cup mayonnaise
4 tablespoons ketchup
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
dash Worcestershire sauce
1/2 ounce scotch

• Mix as listed above, adding scotch last.
• Serve with fresh vegetables or taco chips.
• Can be made ahead if kept chilled.

I'm sure that after the meal I described on Valentine's Day (stuffed calves hearts for those of you who missed it) you're probably wondering what the big deal is about this recipe. You're probably thinking "What's her problem? It's just a dip recipe. I mean, at least it's not guts."

Granted, this recipe is not actually offal. However. Part of good cooking is understanding the importance of proportion. Now look at this list of ingredients. I'll wait a minute while you cast your eye over them again.

Now then. Notice the amount of mayonnaise and ketchup. Now notice the amount of other ingredients. I'm sorry, but an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper? Can anyone even measure anything that small? What are we trying to accomplish here--see how many grains of cayenne pepper can dance on the head of a pin? And a "dash" of Worcestershire sauce? And wonder of wonders--a whole half ounce of something exotic (at least, for South Carolina) like Scotch.

So ... you add a dash of this, a grain of that, and a trickle of scotch, and you call this a recipe? No way. I say it's ketchup and mayonnaise. And I say the hell with it.

--P.