i (23f) recently moved into my own apartment and my grandma (who passed last year) left me a handwritten recipe book. it’s been in our family for decades and everyone always talks about how amazing her cooking was. i was super emotional about it and wanted to make one of the more iconic dishes—her “beef moon stew.” don’t ask me why it’s called that, nobody knows, it just always had that name.

i followed the recipe to the letter, even bought some pricey ingredients to do it “the right way.” halfway through cooking i started noticing the instructions were... weird. like, it said to cook the meat for 4 hours but in the microwave, and to “sprinkle in the sacred dust” (what? it was just flour), and one part just said “whisper gently to the pot for 33 seconds.” i thought maybe it was a quirky writing style, she was kinda whimsical like that.

i made it anyway. it looked disgusting but i took a few bites just to honor her. two hours later i’m throwing up my soul. like full-on food poisoning, curled up on the bathroom floor type of day. i ended up going to urgent care and was told it was likely from undercooked beef or spoiled dairy.

when i told my mom what happened, she casually said, “oh yeah, your aunt made that recipe up as a joke one christmas and grandma wrote it down because she thought it was hilarious. we never actually ate it.” i was furious. i felt tricked. i threw the whole recipe book in the trash.

now my family’s upset and calling me disrespectful and dramatic. they said i should’ve kept it “for the memories” and that i overreacted. my cousin said i “cursed the kitchen” by throwing away grandma’s handwriting and now she won’t bless any of my meals (what does that even mean???).

i feel bad but also like... i literally got poisoned and it wasn’t even a real family recipe. aitah?