FORECLOSURE FIESTA
You will need:
Spare change
6 avocados
1 lime
1 clove garlic, halved
1 small onion, chopped
Small bunch cilantro, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
Salt
Arrange four chairs—you know, the ones that have yet to be repossessed—in a semicircle for the few friends who haven’t abandoned you. Take jar of change to nearest Coinstar machine; use proceeds ($56.34) to buy ingredients and rent frozen-margarita machine. (Note: in parts of the western United States, limes and avocados grow on trees and may be procured by shimmying up trunk and self-picking.)
Use extra-long extension cord to siphon electricity from neighbor for margarita machine. Soak onion in juice of one lime. Mash avocado into a bowl that has been rubbed with garlic. Add onions and all other ingredients and season with salt.
Should repo man arrive for chairs, invite him in and serve guacamole with chips. The more the merrier! When party is over, do not feel despondent; look on the bright side: no more annoying mortgage payments or nosy neighbors to worry about and there is no need to clean up. Simply pack leftovers in a cooler and go sit in the park.
WHO’S THE DADDY? FLAPJACKS
You will need:
1½ cups flour
3 Tbs. melted butter, plus
some for frying
3 Tbs. sugar
2 eggs
1¼ cups milk
1 tsp. salt
1¾ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. vanilla
¼ tsp. saliva from each
possible daddy
DNA testing kit
While looking at your baby’s face, subtract all similarities to yourself and see which of the many possible fathers the baby resembles. When this proves ineffective—as it no doubt will, given the very many men you slept with nine and a half months ago—mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Remember with annoyance how the nurses reacted to your surprise that the baby didn’t have darker skin. Phone Kyle, Brad, Philemon, Bo Jing, and George to explain that you need to get some saliva from them. You might not want to tell them straight off why you want it. Maybe say that you want to wear it in a vial around your neck.
Beat together eggs, milk, and melted butter. Add cinnamon and vanilla. Suddenly recall Zander, Tito, Aafiya, and the Dude. Call the first three, and send the Dude a text message. He never picks up the phone. Oh! Don’t forget N!xau. Write him a letter.
Combine egg mix with flour and stir well. Heat butter in a pan and pour in ½ cup batter. Cook until done on one side and flip to cook the other side. Enjoy with sugar, syrup, or birth control pills.
FORTY YEARS OLD AND FIRED FROM STARBUCKS CHEWY FRUIT AND NUT COOKIE STACK
You will need:
Large pockets
After Laurie is finished reading the lengthy list of your infractions (not knowing the difference between an Americano and a macchiato, a distaste for Bob Dylan, waving your hand in front of your nose and saying PU when someone orders soy milk), head home with your pockets full of goodies to tide you over until you find another job.
Open one pack madeleines, being careful not to strain your carpal-tunnel-affected wrist (curse that incessant foaming). Place one madeleine on plate.
Make a list of pros and cons of being fired from the Bucks.
Pros: No longer have to work for self-important seventeen-year-old Laurie
No more apron
Don’t have to listen to overcaffeinated eighty-year-old ladies talk about gout
No more having to go to the bathroom every ten minutes
Dan Zanes-free afternoons
Can sleep late
Can watch television all day
Are too old to work at Starbucks in any case
Cons: Have to pay for coffee
Not getting paid
Have to get another job
Are totally unqualified to do anything but work at Starbucks
Take one Chewy Fruit and Nut bar, layer it between two madeleines. Top with one Fruit Stella™ from pocket. Call mother and ask if you can stay at her house for a while—tell her you will bring a pound of Café Estima Blend© Fair Trade Certified™ ground for her Mr. Coffee machine. Take one-pound bag of said coffee out of pants, where it has been chafing since you shoved it down there on your way out the door.
Place remaining madeleine on top of Fruit Stella™ and smush down with the palm of your hand, the way your ego was squashed when Laurie chewed you out in front of all the regulars this morning for filling your mouth with whipped cream directly from the can. Who doesn’t do that? Remember how humiliating it was when everyone was staring at you, and the whipped cream was falling in globs onto your apron. Sandwich the stack between two black-and-white cookies. Shove as much of the Chewy Fruit and Nut cookie stack as you can into your mouth at once. Walk to Jamba Juice; fill out application.
GRAVY CHEESE FRIES FOR A BIG FAT FATTY
You will need:
1 bag frozen french fries
1 can chicken gravy
1 packet shredded cheddar cheese
Potato chips
Mayonnaise
Remove constricting Spanx that have been holding in your excess flab like a sausage casing for the past nine hours. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread fries on baking sheet. Bake according to package directions. Remove from oven, top with cheese, and return to oven for 5 minutes, or until cheese melts. Meanwhile, open can of gravy and heat. Any cheese not used in fry topping can be eaten in reckless fistfuls while you wait for fries to cook. (But, of course, you already know that.)
When cheese is melted, remove from oven, dump into a large bowl (or trough) and top with gravy. Retrieve potato chips from between sofa cushions and sprinkle on top for added crunch. Serve with side of mayonnaise for dipping.
NOBODY THINKS YOU ARE FUNNY ORANGE-GLAZED PORK CHOPS
You will need:
1 Tbs. butter
1 clove garlic
Half onion, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
Better material
1 cup orange juice
2 pork chops
2 Tbs. olive oil
Timing
Salt and pepper
Melt butter in a medium pan over moderate heat. Add onion, garlic, and cumin and sauté until soft, about 7 minutes. Add orange juice and simmer for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, salt and pepper pork chops and sauté over medium-high heat until fully cooked. As tempting as it is to eat them raw so as to inflict death upon yourself from salmonella, don’t. There are plenty of people that may one day find your personality tolerable. It should come as a relief that you have finally realized after thirty-four years that your go-to joke (A sandwich walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “We don’t serve food in here”) is just not funny. Neither are jokes about insurance premiums, tax codes, and incurable diseases that afflict children. Nor is a joke made funnier by prefacing it with “Did you ever notice,” by saying “That was a joke,” or after drinking half a bottle of tequila. And if you have to ask, “Get it?” They didn’t.
When chops are fully cooked, pour sauce over them, scraping up little brown bits on bottom of pan. Turn onto plate and enjoy as best you can.
COCKTAIL NIBBLES FOR ALCOHOLICS
You will need:
1 package Pillsbury Grands
Frozen Biscuits
Small wedge of brie, cut
into chunks
Dried cranberries
1 cup chopped walnuts,
if desired
Step 1
Wake to find that you are sleeping next to complete stranger. Quietly get up, and examine said stranger’s apartment for indication of who he is and what city you are in. The phone book is a good start. Scranton? Oh boy. Not again. Quietly phone taxi company.
Step 2
Once home, take two Tylenol and one Aleve and hope for the best. S
leep for seven to ten hours, drooling as desired.
Step 3
When you wake, pour ¾ cup alcohol into a glass and drink. Vodka works. If no vodka is available, the following may be substituted: whiskey, rum, gin, schnapps, Listerine.
Step 4
Open package Pillsbury Grands. Preheat oven to 350°F. Separate biscuits and place one into each well of muffin tin. Pour 1 cup vodka into glass. Drink.
Step 5
Place one or two chunks of brie on top of each biscuit. Listen to messages; delete disappointed, judgmental one from passive-aggressive AA sponsor.
Step 6
Call friend and nonchalantly invite her over for some cocktails. If you are drinking Listerine, this is a good opportunity to ask her to bring vodka. Be sure to do it subtly. Try, “If you happen to be passing by a liquor store . . .”
Step 7
Place a few dried cranberries and walnuts, if using, on top of cheese and pop into oven. Take shower to remove clammy film left by excessive sweating.
Step 8
Check oven. When nibbles are golden brown and puffy, much like your face, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
Step 9
Cut each biscuit into four bites, arrange decoratively on a serving dish to accompany vodka when it arrives with enabler.
Step 10
Enjoy cheese nibbles with vodka, taking care to occasionally acknowledge presence of enabler.
Step 11
When vodka is gone, suggest to enabler that you pop out to local bar. Once at bar, forget all about enabler and pay close attention to the kind gentleman who is buying your drinks. Try to get a good look at his face, however blurry it may be. If you have a camera on your cell phone, you may want to take a picture. It could come in handy later.
Step 12
Agree that you and your new gentleman friend should continue your conversation back at his place. So what if it’s in Scranton?
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SWEET POTATO PIE
You will need:
2 medium sweet potatoes
½ stick butter
1 buddy
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup whole milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbs. flour
1 piecrust
First, stop shouting. Preheat oven to 350°F. Prick sweet potatoes with a fork and roast them until tender, about 1¼ hours. Seriously, dude, calm down.
Increase oven temperature to 400°F and place a baking pan on the bottom rack. Scoop potatoes from skins and mash with a fork. No, nobody is trying to break into your foxhole. Chill out! Melt butter in a small pan, stir in sugar then add to sweet potatoes. Crack eggs as you would skulls and whisk into potato mixture. Whisk in remaining ingredients.
Phone buddy, as you need a voice of reason to tell you that nobody is trying to get you. You are home, making sweet potato pie. Relax. Pour filling into piecrust.
Place the piecrust on heated baking dish in oven and bake until set, about 40 minutes. Whoa! Where’d you go? Hello? Why are you staring off into space like that? It’s creepy. Snap out of it.
STINKING NO GOOD BROKEDOWN CAR BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN
You will need:
Bus pass
4 chicken breasts, bone
in, skin on
2 cups buttermilk
1 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. paprika
½ tsp. cayenne
Flour
Oil for frying
Alarm clock
Set alarm clock for two hours earlier than you would have to get up if your car weren’t a piece of junk. Put chicken breasts in a plastic bag filled with buttermilk and place in the refrigerator. Once in driveway, pause at vehicle to kick it thirteen times or until your aggression has been sufficiently satisfied. Walk mile and a half to bus stop. Be sure to dress appropriately for the weather, as you will have to wait twenty-seven minutes for the bus.
Take bus seven miles, or one hour and twenty minutes, to workplace. After work, repeat, taking bus for one hour and twenty minutes. From your stop, walk mile and a half to your home while cursing the Russians for producing second-rate vehicles, and yourself for buying one off craigslist.
Pour oil into a heavy skillet or cast-iron pan. The oil should reach halfway up the sides of the pan. Heat to 325°F. Drain chicken of excess buttermilk. If friends should call, entice them with a fried-chicken-themed slumber party, in the hopes that they might stay the night, thereby ensuring you a ride to work in the morning. Rub chicken all over with spice mixture and dredge in flour.
Try to donate vehicle to a charitable organization that will remove it from your property.
Fry chicken in oil until golden brown, about 5 minutes on each side. Drain on a wire rack and plan what to do with the car, as it will surely sit on your lawn for the next fifteen years or until you can afford to have it towed. Some possibilities are: Decide it’s a sculpture and charge admission to your gallery, plant a garden inside the hood like the neighbors have done, claim it used to belong to Bruce Willis and sell it on eBay.
SPICY NUTS WITH HONEY ’CAUSE YOU MARRIED FOR MONEY
You will need:
Cooking spray
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. curry powder
¼ tsp. cayenne
¼ tsp. salt
2 cups pecans
2 Tbs. honey
Loud horn
Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and place over medium-high heat. Mix together cayenne and curry powder. When husband returns from water aerobics class, change his colostomy bag.
Place nuts and honey in pan and sprinkle on salt and spices. If you like, add more cayenne, depending on the constitution of your husband. Stir to coat nuts (the ones on the pan, not his) and cook for 4 minutes or until toasted. While husband is upstairs changing into his afternoon robe, hide in coat closet. When you hear him coming down the electric chair-lift, wait till he is at the bottom and pop out, blasting the loud horn in his face. If this does not stop his heart, put on as much jewelry as you have, reminding yourself that no one lives forever. Enjoy nuts with a large cocktail as you play canasta till four, when it’s time to whiz up his dinner in the blender.
HALLOWEEN COSTUME PROVED OFFENSIVE TO ALL YOUR COWORKERS CHOCOLATE SMORGASBORD
You will need:
1 bag trick-or-treat candy
Sensitivity training
First remove wrapper from 1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Eat. Peek out of windows to see if anybody has spray-painted anything on the side of your house. Unwrap 1 mini Baby Ruth bar. Eat.
Draft letter of apology to National Organization for Women. Find 1 Mr. Goodbar. Unwrap and eat.
Draft letter of apology to American Association of People with Disabilities. Locate 1 pack Rolos. Eat.
Draft one letter of apology to Indigenous Peoples Task Force. Eat 1 Peppermint Pattie.
Draft yet another letter of apology to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Eat 1 Mounds bar and 1 Almond Joy.
Copy last letter, but this time delete Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and insert NAACP. Cram 1 fistful of candy corn into mouth and eat. Delete NAACP and insert Christian Solidarity International; do the same with African Ancestral Lesbians United for Social Change, Scottish Human Rights Council, Committee of Concerned Scientists, and Forest Peoples Programme.
Take all Tootsie Rolls, unwrap, form into large ball, and eat as if an apple. Make appointment with sensitivity-training officer and take comfort in knowing that nowadays, if you spend a month in rehab, people will forgive you for almost anything.
CHEESE FONDUE BECAUSE YOUR THERAPIST FELL ASLEEP ON YOU
You will need:
6 cups Gruyère, grated
¼ cup flour
1 clove garlic, halved
1 bottle dry white wine
2 Tbs. sherry
Dash pepper
Dash nutmeg
Day-old bread, cub
ed
Toss cheese with flour and set aside in much the same way your very serious problems were so casually set aside by Dr. Sleepyhead. Rub bottom and sides of a pot with garlic. Heat 2½ cups of wine over low heat until small bubbles rise to surface. Feel your own childhood traumas rising to the surface also: like the time third-grade teacher Mrs. Hiesler exposed your naked behind and spanked you in front of the whole class and the time you walked in on your mom and dad—she inexplicably standing on the bed in her bra and underpants and he in his boxers, kneeling at her feet (?). Get tissues so tears do not fall into pot.
Eat Your Feelings_Recipes for Self-Loathing Page 3