BoomerGirl.com

Presidential campaigns are so scripted and phony that it's no surprise that recipes attributed to John McCain's wife on his Web site were ripped off from the Food Network.

A volunteer intern did it, explained the campaign, which yanked the recipes whose origins were exposed by the Huffington Post.

Jokesters, meanwhile, have made fun of "farfallegate" (for the bow-tie pasta) and wondered how often Cindy, a beer heiress, actually prepares ahi tuna with napa cabbage slaw.

The dustup says a lot about the bull of running for president. But it also raises other issues.

Seems to me almost all recipes are ripped off. A gentler way to look at it is that all recipes are borrowed, or taken in, like stray kittens.

You may not conceive a recipe, but a favorite stands so tall in your heart that you feel for it a tremendous sense of ownership, not to mention gratitude to those who owned it before you.

A flood of memories

If you're of a certain age, you still keep recipes on paper. You can sit at the kitchen table with your box or your file or your notebook and enjoy a flood of memories.

There's your mother's spaghetti sauce recipe, written on an index card, signed "Love, Mom," and mailed to you when you moved into your first apartment. Here's the mushroom pate your husband's assistant brought to the only office party you hosted. And isn't it time to bake again that memorable cookie made by the long-dead mother of your long-ago boyfriend?

My own files include recipes cut from magazines or newspapers or printed off favorite Web sites, then annotated with modifications and reviews, such as "Great and easy!"

When do those recipes become mine, not theirs? I believe it's the minute I try a recipe and change it.

Simple and satisfying

Cindy McCain's recipes were verbatim from the Food Network. She's taken the biggest drubbing for a passion fruit mousse whose ingredients are hard to find and whose complex instructions make it sound not worth an heiress' effort.

A beloved family recipe is, at heart, pretty easy to make and so satisfying that everybody longs to experience it again and again.

My own most-requested recipe I owe to the generosity of a grocery store checkout clerk who asked, as I was buying chicken: "Have you ever made African chicken peanut soup?" He described it in lush detail and a few days later handed me his recipe, photocopied from a cookbook.

I've made it dozens of times, and filled dozens of requests, even before I added mushrooms. (See below.)

Last week, when I learned the clerk's home burned down, I sent him a note, a check and the recipe, photocopied off his photocopy.

A good recipe is yours, mine, ours and even Cindy's.

Susan Ager's African chicken peanut soup

Serves: 6/ Preparation time: 15 minutes Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes This recipe is adapted from grocery store clerk Lin Arkles, who got it from Elizabeth Rozin's "Blue Corn and Chocolate" (Knopf, 1992)

2 medium onions, peeled, chopped

2 large red peppers, chopped

4 to 6 cloves garlic, peeled, minced

1 cup of sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

1 can (28-ounces) tomatoes, chopped, with juice

8 cups chicken stock or fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1/4 teaspoon. black pepper

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 cup white rice

1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (see cook's note)

2/3 cup natural peanut butter

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, pepper and garlic. Saute until the onions just begin to brown. Add mushrooms and saute until most of mushroom liquid is evaporated. Add the tomatoes with their juice, chicken stock, black pepper and red pepper flakes. Simmer, uncovered, about one hour. Add the rice and chicken and simmer 15 minutes or until the rice is tender. Whisk in peanut butter until dissolved. If you can, save for a day as flavors get better.

Cook's note: To cook chicken breasts, put two or three boneless and skinless chicken breasts on a baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, cover with foil. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until cooked through and the juices run clear.