I WAS reading a recipe for apple strudel when I came to a sentence that stopped me cold: “If you don’t have a helper,” it began.

If a dish needs a helper, I need to move on.

Although I didn’t end up with a strudel, I did end up on a quest. I began asking good cooks I know about recipe deal breakers  those ingredients or instructions that make them throw down the whisk and walk away.

Whether for reasons practical or psychological, even the most experienced cooks have an ingredient, technique or phrase that will make them bypass a recipe.

Some deal breakers are simply a function of place. People in small New York apartments don’t execute recipes that require well-ventilated spaces. They rarely char peppers or broil salmon, lest the apartment stink for days. They rarely deep-fry.