Do you ever wonder why you don't cook? Perhaps you think that you "don't know how to cook." Because if you can read, you can cook. Can you? (Read? Unless someone else is reading this to you, the answer is "yes.") Too expensive? Well, but home-cooked food doesn't need to cost an arm and a leg; in fact, it doesn't need to cost more than a turnip and some chewing gum. Gas or electricity turned off again? Fine; there's more than one way to make lobster bisque. Short on time? How long does it take you to open a can of catfood?

Out of excuses? Great! Have a go at a few of the recipes below, invite some friends over, and experience "fine" dining as you never have before.

Oh, and bon appétit!

Putrefied Hamburger with Real Glue
2 lbs ground beef at least a month past its "sell-by" date
4 oz Elmer's Glue-All
Remove the maggots and set them aside. In a large bowl, combine the beef and the glue; mix until nearly uniform. Garnish with the maggots and serve. Done.
Note: Elmer's Glue-All and similar glues are edible; that's why you were allowed to use them when you were in kindergarten. Anyone who says "this is inedible" is is either mistaken or doesn't know what "inedible" means.

Scorched Asparagus
8 stalks asparagus
Quite a lot of lighter fluid
Matches
A great dish if you'd like to have a fire in your home. Wash the asparagus stalks and then pat them dry. Snap the bottoms off of the stalks, then arrange them next to each other on a plate. The plate need not be fireproof, but if it isn't, double the recipe so you'll have enough for the firefighters. Douse fully with the lighter fluid. Remember: you're not sprinkling; you're dousing.
Light a match and throw it onto the plate. This may take more than one try; leave the matches on the plate as a garnish/conversation piece. Allow the fluid to burn until the asparagus looks done.
Put the fire out somehow.

Raw-Pheasant and Glass Smoothie
1 wine glass
1 dead pheasant, whole
3/4 cup cinnamon
8 oz crushed ice
Using a meat cleaver, reduce the pheasant to two-inch pieces. Pre-crush the wine glass by putting it in a pillow case and smashing it against a floor or wall. In a large bowl, combine him with the glass and cinnamon; mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. In batches, transfer mixture and proportionate amount of ice into blender; blend each batch thoroughly. Serve.
It's always good to remember that raw poultry tastes like ass, which is why the cinnamon. Also: do not wait until after serving this dish to call 911.

Lobster Bisque "Revisité"
2 two-pound live lobsters
1 tomato
1 head garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons tarragon
2 tablespoons thyme
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
Four cups brandy
Four cups dry sherry
Fill a heavy two-gallon pot two-thirds full and bring to a rolling boil. Drop lobsters head-first into water and allow to return to a boil, then cook, covered, over high heat for 8 minutes. Remove the now-dead lobsters from the pot and put them in a large bowl. Once cool enough to handle, twist off the tails and claws and remove the meat.
Chop the tomato and cut the garlic head in half. In a large bowl, combine the oil, tomato, garlic, tarragon, thyme, cream, and cornstarch.
Thoroughly chew and then swallow the lobster meat in batches. Chew/drink the oil mixture. Stand very still for five minutes, supporting yourself by leaning against a counter or wall if needed. Ignore the nausea for now, but feel free to burp if you're confident that you can control "runaway belches." You should feel your stomach muscles contracting; this is normal, as are cold sweats.
Swallow the brandy and the sherry as quickly as you can. When the peristalsis begins, gently vomit the bisque into four large soup bowls and serve immediately.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
75 pints Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream
Preheat over to 375°F. Using your fingers, remove all dough pellets from ice cream and discard the ice cream, unless you plan to make Vanilla Ice Cream (see below).
Combine dough pellets in a bowl and mix ruthlessly, taking care to preserve the structural integrity of the mini-chips.
Drop the dough in heaping teaspoons one-and-a-half inches apart onto cookie sheets and bake for 8-11 minutes. Let stand for two minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool. Best served warm.
Note: this is sort of a stupid way to make chocolate chip cookies. There are definitely better ways.
Boiled Quail with Clorox
64 oz Clorox
1 large quail
1/4 cup cinnamon
Ensure that the preparation area is well ventilated.
After ensuring that the preparation area is well ventilated, combine the Clorox and cinnamon in a medium-sized saucepan. (Make sure that the preparation area is well ventilated.)
Bring the Clorox-and-cinnamon mixture to a rolling boil in the very well ventilated area.
You're still there! That's so great, because currently the effect of boiling Clorox is a gray area at this time as far as what happens when you do that. The rest is easy: put the quail in the saucepan and cook it until it's done or you're not hungry anymore, whichever comes first.

Catfood with Milk and Sugar
4 oz canned cat food
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup refined sugar
Consider serving this offbeat dish even if you can afford real people-food, as it will definitely leave an impression in your guests, whether or not they can keep it down.
Take the cat food and dump it into a bowl (personal taste should inform your choice of brand and "flavor," but 9 Lives Tuna Select is quite good, as are Friskies Chicken Chunks and Iams Hairball Care). Dump the milk and sugar on top and serve.
Note: there is a certain type of person who will tell you that cat food is only "for cats." Usually these are people who, for example, once threw up after eating a can of Fancy Feast Elegent Medleys Shredded Wild Salmon Fare, and now feel free to draw conclusions about cat food in general, based on that one experience.

Yesterday\'s News with Cinnamon
Page 1 of a newspaper other than today's newspaper
1 tbsp cinnamon
Water
Crumple the newspaper page roughly and soak it for ten seconds in enough water to fully submerse it. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. Serve.
Note: it can be fun to serve this dish on special, date-specific occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc. One approach is to order back issues of your favorite paper, with one and only one issue being the "special date" relevant to the meal. Then it can become a game, where everyone has to figure out the date of their meal, sort of. Like, "hey, I got January fifteenth!" That could actually be the game, just people saying the date that they got. There could also be some type of scoring somehow.
Vanilla Ice Cream
75 pints Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream
Using your fingers, remove all dough pellets from ice cream and discard the pellets, unless you plan to make Chocolate Chip Cookies (see above). Serve immediately.
Note: it doesn't really make sense to prepare vanilla ice cream this way unless you're making Chocolate Chip Cookies (see above). Otherwise it would probably make more sense to just go to the store and ask them if they have any?

Lettuce Paste
1 head iceberg lettuce
3 cups water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
Flour as needed
Bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, wash lettuce thoroughly; if you're considering skipping this step, think about how sometimes insects or even small woodland creatures make their homes in heads of lettuce. Also think about how you don't know who might have coughed bird flu onto it or similar.
Put all ingredients except the flour into a blender or food processor, or through a food mill. Blend, process, or mill until the ingredients form a green, unappetizing paste. Plunge the paste into the boiling water; cook for one minute, then reduce heat. Cook, uncovered, adding flour until it looks like something that you'd be tentatively willing to put in your mouth. Garnish with pieces of real lettuce and dust with flour.
Note: most people prefer to avoid putting lettuce paste in their mouths, but if you have a really bad cold where you can't taste anything, it's fine. People won't be all, "Fuck, this shit is amazing!" But sometimes food doesn't taste very good. Get your head our of your ass.

Eggshell Soup
4 eggs
Okay. Put a large bowl on the floor. Hold one egg over your head and drop it into the bowl. Repeat for the remaining three eggs. If you miss the bowl a few times, that's why you bought a dozen eggs. (You bought a dozen, correct? Go back to the store and get at least a dozen eggs if you don't already have that many, fuckwad.)
Saltines With Lard
8 oz Saltines
1 lb lard
Crush the Saltines into interestingly sized crumbs.
Reluctantly fold the lard into the crumbs. If it doesn't seem like enough, add more. Consistency should be non-threateningly slippery. If you want more, double the ingredients, but this should do it.
Serve this dish with something that will mask its taste and especially its consistency, which, frankly, is rather vile.

Onion with Mississippi State Flag
1 large onion
1 small Mississippi state flag on a stick
The Mississippi state flag resembles both the Confederate battle flag and the "Stars and Bars," flags of a short-lived country which lost a war to U.S. in 1865. "Flying" this flag is about celebrating tradition. It is not about embracing bigotry. Which is why you shouldn't think twice about serving this dish to any of your black friends.
Preparation: stick the flag into the onion; serve.

Chewing Gum
2 oz chewing gum
There are different ways to make gum at home, but it's much easier to just buy it. If you want to make it at home, there must be books that tell how to do that.
An interesting and effective way to wake up in the morning is to put a tablespoon of wasabi into your mouth, along with the gum. You can get both of these guys at the store though; it doesn't make much sense to make them at home, but again, there are probably books.
The art of gum-serving is in the presentation, and the good news is, almost anything goes well with gum. Experiment, for example, with different root vegetables (the adjacent photo shows two types of gum lovingly arranged around a turnip).

Eggplant with Tide Liquid Detergent
1 large eggplant
16 oz Tide Liquid Detergent
Dump the Tide on the eggplant and serve.
Copyright © 2007 Steve Schneider. All rights reserved.