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According to Hofmann: Cooking for Bachelors

By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read
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Sometimes opportunities present themselves in strange ways.

While I was doing the “Locally Yours” radio show a few weeks back on WMBS, my co-host, Bill Madden, suggested there should be a cookbook for bachelors. He then suggested the title be changed to “Cooking For Singles” to not discriminate against the female gender.

However, with respect to women, this cookbook has to be for bachelors because you gals need to shut your traps and get into the kitchen to do what God put you on this Earth to do while the man goes out to make a living, and thatĢƵ cook meals, clean house and make babies–all at the same time.

I’m kidding, of course, it doesn’t have to be all at the same as two things can be done at once or right in a row without breaks.

But if you’re like me and spend most of your free time writing apology letters to the National Organization for Women, you find you don’t have the time to cook.

Also, if you can’t afford to go out to eat because of gender-defamation lawsuits and if your municipality banned you from dumpster diving, then the “Cooking for Bachelors” is right for you.

Consider this weekĢƵ column a special sneak preview of the groundbreaking and scale-bending book with the first chapter being the most-important meal of the day: the 3 a.m. bologna sandwich after a night of bar hopping.

The next-most-important meal of the day is, of course, breakfast.

In chapter three, page 19, I describe how to make a simple breakfast sandwich.

“Now, if you have bread, use bread. If you’re all fancy and think you’re better than everyone else, you can use an English muffin or a bagel, but not one of them cro-sants. If I can’t spell it, you don’t eat it.

“Okay, now that you have your two bread slices out, put the cereal of your choice on one slice and then douse the cereal with pancake syrup and/or peanut butter to keep the structure intact.

“Place the other slice of bread on top of the other, compress, and you have a simple breakfast sandwich.

Moving on, if your career puts you in an office, at your home, on a dusty job site, in someone elseĢƵ home to steal their belongings or scaring children under a bridge, you’re gonna need a nutritious as well as an easy-to-prepare lunch, which can be found in chapter five, page 231 of the book.

“Gentlemen, the most important piece of food you can ever posses is a burrito coat–some folks call it a torteeela, but, as my spellcheck is informing me, I can’t spell it, but I love to eat them, so we’ll go with burrito coat. ThatĢƵ what my divorce lawyer calls a ‘compromise’.

“You may be left with a question, and thatĢƵ what to put in your burrito coat, and the answer is everything, but you need two kinds of everything.

“The one kind of everything is the solids of your meal, which can be any meat, cheese, potato chips, vegetables–just dump whatever you can find on your burrito coat that won’t burst out once you roll it up.

“The other thing is gravy, and not actual gravy (unless you have it, of course) but any kind of thick liquid condiment like ketchup, barbecue sauce, mustard, mayo, salsa, mashed potatoes on the soggy side, Jello in the middle of its transformation, etc.

“And there you have it. Lunch in a cozy burrito coat.”

And thatĢƵ the entire chapter on lunch, so letĢƵ move onto a section in the next chapter of the book, dinner–more specifically, the slow cooker on page 796.

“The slow cooker is a great device when you want food in a hurry, but only after you come home from a long day of work and had earlier placed your ingredients in the glorious machine and had it cook all day long on low heat.

“The internet is replete with slow-cooker and Crock-Pot recipes for you to try, but the problem with them is you actually have to pre-cook some things to make something else.

“For example, if you wanted to make General TsoĢƵ chicken, you have to cut up chicken, cook and brown it on the stove, put in in the slow cooker with the sauce, stir it, add vegetables and then add cornstarch to thicken the sauce!

“Really? WhatĢƵ the point of living? If you’re going to have to do that, you might as well just make it on the stove and get a masterĢƵ degree from a culinary institute while you’re at it!

“HereĢƵ a real manĢƵ slow-cooker recipe for beef stew: Buy a can of beef stew, empty the can in the slow cooker, set it on low, go to work, come home and eat.”

With that, I hope you enjoy this special sneak peek of this book because, like my other books, I’m sure it won’t sell and will probably be the cause of several lawsuits.

In that case, you can reach Bill Madden daily on WMBS.

According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, “Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One…and Dying, Too” and “Stupid Brain,” are available on Amazon.com. He co-hosts the “Locally Yours” radio show on WMBS 590 AM every Friday.

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