13 Aug Summer Squash Casserole
I used to bake a certain kind of cookie called a Russian Tea Cake for the Christmas holiday season. It was a light and flaky mix of flour, butter, and chopped pecans that you formed into one-inch balls and, once baked, rolled in confectionary sugar. It was straight to the hips but oh so good. It became a favorite of my children, and my mother liked it enough to borrow the recipe begin making them as gifts.
They just never tasted like mine. They didn’t seem to hold together as well, often collapsing into a hand full of chunks and crumbs before you could get them to your mouth. She was frustrated year after year, and was certain I was not giving her the ‘whole recipe.’ Then one year, reciting to me her process for direct comparison to mine, she revealed that she had, as she always did with all her recipes, substituted margarine for the butter.
Butter both tastes differently than margarine, and it behaves differently when baking. She had the recipe just so, but the substitute ingredient rendered the finished product severely inferior.
A few weeks back, in preparation for an upcoming member appreciation event, I rush ordered polo shirts for all the Conservatory’s employees with the Conservatory logo embroidered above the chest pocket. The shirts arrived a day early, and the embroidery was beautiful. My wife, Jeanette, insisted on washing and ironing the before distributing them to our staff, and when she was ironing them observed that two of the shirts had been miss-sewn. And the sizing was odd. Mine fit reasonably well in the chest and shoulders, but came down nearly to my knees.
The firm from whom I had ordered the shirts sent a survey to assess my satisfaction with their product. I praised their quick delivery and skillful embroidery. But, I also shared the shortcomings and admitted that I would not be ordering from them again. They, like my mother, had followed directions precisely and effectively. But, they had begun with an inferior product from the start, and the final result, despite their good intentions and adherence to instructions, was a failure.
This happens in the world of investing, too. Here at the Conservatory, we often create customized investment recipes to meet the unique needs of a project-based client, only to have them execute using mutual funds and exchange-traded funds available from retail brokerage firms.
When overseeing the portfolio of a Conservatory Member, on the other hand, we access the same investment vehicles that are favored by pension plans and foundations – and which are unavailable to the retail investing public. Naturally, the outcome when we do the baking with our ingredients for our members differs from that which results when a project-based client does their own baking using what we generally consider inferior substitutes.
Speaking of recipes, there is a delicious one for summer squash casserole on our website you ought to give a try. For that, the ingredients are readily available at your local grocers.
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