As regular readers know, we keep both questions and answers anonymous, so your future in-laws need never know about any gaps in your cooking knowledge. Also, once in a great while we tease people and/or their questions, and anonymity helps to keep things friendly.

We try to let you know when your question has been answered, and this is the reason we ask for your email address. Knowing where you live (state and country) often helps us answer your question, and is not idle curiosity on our part. The question about your cooking abilities is idle curiosity on our part. We do not publish your email address or rent it to list brokers, tell people or companies where you live, make jokes with family members (yours or ours) about your cooking skills, or do other nefarious things with your private information; in fact, we keep it private. If you have concerns, please read our privacy statement.

My question is:

My email address is:

I live in: (state/country/ZIP)

My cooking expertise is consistently underrated, but allowing a glimmer of honesty to creep through for just a moment, I rate my cooking skill as follows:

Novice
Advanced Beginner
Good Home Cook
Gourmet
Professional

We are a little overwhelmed with questions right at the moment and are not satisfying everyone with our response time. Some questions we are able to answer quickly; others take a surprising amount of research. Recognizing that Ochef.com is a free service that is supported only by advertisers may help less-patient questioners manage their expectations. And if we are not quick enough to save your currently deflating soufflé, burning soup, or stuck-to-the-pan cake, take some comfort in knowing that our answer to your question will help thousands of other people in the future when they face the same problem in their kitchens.

Note: All questions become the property of Food News Service, and may be published online at Ochef.com or in other media, but, again, will be used anonymously. Thank you for writing!