Recipes For Disaster!

One Man's Hilarious Journey Into Home Cooking...

“The only thing worse than a person who can cook and won’t is a person who can’t cook and will.” – David Aho (photo by olly – Fotolia)

Twenty years ago, I couldn’t have cooked a meal without the smoke alarms going off or the dog howling. Somehow, during that time when it became necessary for every adult to go to work, I acquired the majority of our household’s meal preparation responsibilities. I had the skinniest kids in town for a while, but I’ve actually become quite proficient in rudimentary culinary skills in the last few years.

I was not an overnight cooking sensation. Many meals became dog food and there were a few I’ve seen seagulls spit out. Once, I cooked a steak that even my cousin, Carl complained about.

“This steak isn’t cooked,” he whined. It’s easy to ignore a whining Carl but insults to my cooking have to be addressed.

“Whattya mean? It’s cooked. I oughta know I cooked it,” I groused.

“I’ve seen cows hurt worse than this and survive,” he claimed.

Now, I’ve become a pretty fair cook if I stick to blue-plate special dishes. I concoct basic, drab all-American meals like pot roast, meat loaf, pork chops or Leftovers ala Aho. I have had some severe disappointments in the past, like the Great Burrito Horror Show of ’03. The final products were the size of Oreo cookies and weighed six pounds each. They nearly went through the kitchen floor when I shoveled them into the garbage.

And who could ever forget my tuna fish stew that seemed like such a wholesome, healthy idea, but ended up tasting like cole slaw and cod liver oil. My original recipe for banana burgers was a flop as was my sardine-salami surprise.

The first big loser of the new century was my pan-fried pudding pate’ served at a New Years’ Eve party. I had run out of Karo syrup and erroneously thought that no one would notice when I substituted cough syrup.

I always have trouble determining which wines compliment which meats. Is it red wine with red meat? White wine with white meat? I usually get by because no one can tell if the meat I serve is red or white. I also compensate by serving copious quantities of both wines and by the time dinner arrives nobody cares anymore.

I’m finally starting to recognize and operate some of our modern kitchen appliances. I can now use an electric can opener without cutting my fingers and I know my way around the range pretty well, but there is one gadget I fastidiously avoid. It is a strange, hulking creature that lurks in the corner of our pantry, snarling at me from under an assortment of Marquis de Sade attachments.

I hauled it out once but couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be used for so I decided to feed it a pile of vegetables and see what came out. I don’t think the thing had malicious intentions but it snagged my shirt tail and tore into me like a science fiction monster out of a Fifties “B” movie.

I managed to get it unplugged before it loaded itself with some of its sinister accessories, but it ate my belt. It’s still squatting silently under the sink, waiting menacingly for some unsuspecting guest chef to drag it away from its dusty nap and plug it in. Every time I look at it, I want to order take-out pizza. But my family loves good home cooking, so I always try to take them out to a restaurant that features it.

Remember, the only thing worse than a person who can cook and won’t is a person who can’t cook and will.

by David Aho

I am a retired corrections officer who has written extensively over the years for local papers and magazines. A father of three and grandfather of two, I devote my energies and inabilities to family, writing, golf, exercise and playing percussion. (This causes me to stay up late at night and drink beer, darn it.) My wife, Diane, and I live in Marquette with our German Shepherd, Gunther, who diligently pursues any manner of play that causes me to leave my La-Z-Boy. I am an alumnus of MTU and NMU and a Navy veteran of the Viet Nam era. I’ve been a small business owner, salesman, carpenter, auto body repairman, steeplejack, export company manager, cartoonist, corrections officer and I’ve written a crime-fiction novel called “Good Looking Out” which is based in Michigan and available through www.lulu.com under the pseudonym David Michaels.

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