It was with great surprise that I came across this article at News.com.au fairly recently about Ron Douglas and his copycat recipes for an array of fast food restaurants. I'd heard of him years before and thought that it was pretty much common knowledge that you could find these recipes around the traps. You can find his recipe books here, if you are really curious.

What most interested me, though, was the comments thread which went along with the article. You have to understand this news site: the comments threads are often disparaging of whatever is being talked about, and as a Murdoch "news" site it does have the tendency to be pretty low brow. I usually read it solely for entertainment purposes. Like a lot of these things, though, there is a thread of truth in the common theme behind the comments: why bother cooking high fat, bad for you food at home? Why bother copying what they do? And these are really good questions to ask.

The article itself focuses on his KFC ripoff. I don't know about you, but I don't eat KFC all that often because I do know how bad it is for you. The problem is I get cravings, and not just for the chicken. For some reason unbeknownst to me I just love their potato and gravy, and coleslaw; maybe even moreso than the chicken itself. I know it's bad, but that doesn't stop me from craving it, and eventually buying it. This is even though, when I have the greasy food in my hand I know I have done the "wrong thing" by buying it, let alone consuming it. I bet a lot of you feel the same as I do.

I'm going to put aside the convienience issue for now, which is the other reason we buy this bad, but seemingly, good food.

Anyway I got to thinking again about why you'd even bother with the whole thing. Some of us, but not all of us, like to cook. It is a matter of when we get the time, and, especially these days, of the cost involved. There is another aspect, though, and that is the health issue. Let's face it, it is just as easy to cook fatty, heart attack inducing food at home as it is to cook the Good Stuff. But if we were smart there is no reason why we couldn't take some of those recipes and adapt them into something that tastes just as good, maybe even tastes better, and is better for us. I think that's where I see the most good in something like Ron Douglas has created.

I think, overall, a creative person could have a lot of fun with this idea. Especially if they enjoyed being in the kitchen, and had the ability to find short cuts to make the process easier. Although cutting the fat out of some of these recipes would be quite the challenge. Having seen what's involved to replicate the KFC fried chicken, you'd really need the drive and patience to experiment quite a bit.

Personally, I wouldn't get this book , or anything like it, if you were a beginner cook. There are some easy recipes, but many are much too complicated for the layman, especially the signature ones. Even the fast food restaurants get the ingredients for these out of a packet or tub so that they don't have a complicated preparation in store. But if you like the taste and are willing to experiment to lose some of the fat, these may be worth your while. Especially if one of the roadblocks you have to losing weight is cravings for greasy fast food. In the end, like most things, it is up to you to decide whether you even are willing to bother, and where you think your time is best spent.