Bachelor Feed

Last Saturday I had an inspiration: Maybe I'll cook!

So I went to the kitchen to look up some ideas in the cookbooks that live in the microwave stand. Only they weren't there. All that was left were two useless books-- one of them was a thin book on sauces, about the size of a kid's picture book. What the hell am I going to do with a book on sauces?

You see, Rebecca took all the cookbooks when she moved out. She even took the few cookbooks I owned before we got married, like the illustrated Help, My Apartment Has a Kitchen! book for beginners. I can't really complain, though. I never showed any interest in cooking when we lived together, so she probably didn't think I'd want them. At the time when she packed all the cookbooks up, I didn't argue with her. And to be fair, she left a whole lot more stuff than she took. Plus, it's been six months since she moved out and I'm just now discovering that I'm missing those books? I believe the statute of limitations for complaining about this has passed.

On a similar note, I didn't notice until this weekend that there are no salt and pepper shakers in the house. There's a large store of both salt and pepper hiding among the spices, but no shakers. How pathetic is it to have not noticed that for six months?

There was a time, before I got married, when I used to cook. Not a lot, and not often, but there have been times when I'd pick out a recipe, buy all the ingrediants at the store, come home and prepare a dinner. Despite the sense of accomplishment from doing something like that, it never really seemed worth all the work. You could get something just as good at a restaurant, and really, after buying all the ingredients, it's just as expensive as eating out.

So, if I don't cook, what have I been eating the past six months? Good question. Somehow I've survived, and even managed to lose some weight, then gain some weight, then lose it back again. I eat out a lot, have lots of leftovers from eating out, eat lots of sandwiches and frozen foods. (I've averaged at least one frozen pizza a week since the time I was 19 years old.)

But I often eat what I'll call Liberal Bachelor Feed. This includes pita chips with hummus, crackers with cheese, or blue-corn tortillas with salsa. Maybe I'll have a pickle or yogurt on the side. That's my entire dinner. It's quick, easy, and there are no dishes to clean. I can eat it easily in front of the TV, and since there's no meat involved, the cats leave me alone.

Instead of cooking last Saturday, I went to the store with the intention of finding "something new." I found a tub of guacamole, a pre-made Greek Salad from the deli, a tub of cut-up melons, and (wait for it) sushi! I'm not a big sushi eater. I've had it maybe half a dozen times in my life. I don't eat the raw fish, but things like California rolls, which have pre-cooked imitation crab meat with avocado and cucumber wrapped in seaweed and rice are pretty good. Since I was buying from a grocery store, I figured the California rolls would be the safest option. It actually wasn't bad, and I was proud of myself for eating something new.

The next day I planned to have tortilla chips dipped in guacamole, but when I tried the pre-made guacamole, it was nasty and I couldn't eat it. Instead, I had the Greek Salad and "cooked" a frozen pizza. Yum.