My Boston baked beans taste different from Amanda Hesser’s now that I’ve made the dish a gajillion times. They’re both the same recipe. Take my recipe for oven-roasted chicken shawarma, which lots of people make. (More than 17,000 readers have given it a rating on New York Times Cooking.) It was utterly fantastic, and utterly her own — more lemony than mine, a little warmer in spice, the meat cut a little differently — even though she followed the recipe exactly.

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Persons: Amanda Hesser’s, I’ve, They’re Organizations: New York Times Locations: Boston