Cooking 101

Cooking is the act of preparing food for eating by 90% of the women in the world who come home after hours of grueling sexual harassment and unproductive meetings to apply heat to the meat or frozen dinner in order to satisfy the man. It encompasses a vast range of methods, drawers full of once used tools, and 5 used daily. The combinations of ingredients and rearranged rotations serve to disguise the same old same oldishness of the food.

How many ways can the cook prepare chicken, beef, and pork before becoming a monotonous bore? Even McDonalds hasn't figured out how to resolve this problem. The process of selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients requires a pantry full of spices, most of which are used once in a lifetime and if not kept in alphabetical order, may become antiques shortly after the death of the cook. Factors affecting the final outcome have nothing to do with the cook, but with how willing she is to shop every other day for the 12 ingredients in every recipe which she doesn't keep on hand, i.e.: artichokes, eggplant, cumin, rutabaga, buttermilk, tahini, coriander, lemons, limes, oranges, cilantro (a weedy clump of leaves which has a vague odor of line dried laundry), and dillweed. 80% of most families incomes is funneled into foods one way or another.

The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the complete lack of collaboration amongst household cooks, and the lack of time to compare notes because they are too busy filling the stomachs of those who require 3 times the amount of food that they do. Studies have proven that women who don't have to feed children and husbands/boyfriends have 20 times the disposable income of their tied down counterparts. A woman can buy a diamond necklace and 3 gucci handbags with the money she doesn't have to fork out during football or NASCAR season if she lives alone.

How to Improve Your Cooking

It is Tuesday, so it must be "Cream of Campbells Soup over baked meat chunks" night at your house. Your cupboard is full of things in boxes such as macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and pasta sides. Face it, you are a fat lazy ass. If you are tired of preparing the meals, then quit eating. You probably need to lose twice the weight of yourself to look like yourself anyway. But think of your family. Do you really need to make them fat as well? Here's some tips to help you get out of the box and into size 8's.

• Use fresh ingredients, especially spinach, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and eggplant. Fresh herbs such as wasabi, jalapenos, and horesradish add that extra "BAM!" to foods and help people lose interest after two of three bites. Dried parsley and cilantro flakes do not come close to providing the same flavor explosion so sprinkle them liberally over your meals. Before you know it, people will subltely suggest that you don't really have to cook dinner tonight and they will bring dinner to you or order out. Think of all the time you'll have to visit the health club.

Presentation

Here are a few food presentation tips to illustrate how important it is to manipulate the eaters, for lack of a better word, into thinking the food is delicious when in fact it isn't. How food is plated, or arranged on the plate and garnished, figures deeply in one's reaction to it. It even affects how we think the food tastes. A plate of food is the painting, and the rim of the plate is like the art critic who announces how important the painting made of elephant dung will be to future art collectors.

Although the painting/plate of food is total shit, the colors, arrangement, and texture fool the hippocampus section of the brain (the part that turns you into a hippo) into believing otherwise. To incorporate this Houdini-like trump de lie doesn't mean that you have to spend as much time arranging the plate as Pollack did painting a portrait, but it does mean that you need to think a little like an artist and strive for a convincing arrangement.

Food Presentation Tip #1:

Presenting...dinner for 8

Select foods and garnishes that are so pretty you can get away with serving a 1/4 Cup of food to a family of five. A few shreds of carrot here, several slivers of chicken, and a light grating of cheese and voila! You only spent $3.00 on Wednesday's dinner. They can always snack on potato chips later if the meal didn't quite cut it (no pun intended).

Colors

Two or three colors on a plate are usually more interesting than just one. Visualize the combination: poached chicken breasts with Campbells Cream of Mushroom Gravy-esque Soup, mashed potatoes, and steamed cauliflower. BORING. Or how about pork chops with Campbells Cream of Potato soup, and white rice? Would you like some white wine with that? Not only will the family pig out on such fare, but you will quickly have a grocery bill not unlike the US Army's in no time. Now picture roasted red peppers, grilled stuffed chicken breasts on herb-flecked orzo, and a drizzle of green pesto. Dazzling! But yucky. No one will want seconds but they'll think it was the greatest because of the pretty colors, like a rainbow, or skittles, or Gobstoppers, which is where they belong. If you want some color to your food, eat some red meat served rare, ya sissy!

Cooking utensils can have an affect on nutrition

The utensils that are used to cook food often do more harm than good. Molecules of substances can leach from the utensil into the food that is being cooked. Four of the substances that are used in utensils are nonstick coated pans, cast iron, paper plates, and paper towels. All four have been associated with illness. According to Good Morning America, You're All Gonna Die!, an Nbc affiliate, the only way to avoid cancer from the foods you cook is to become anorexic. Since skinny mice live twice as long as fat people, cooking is irrefuteably a highly overated waste of time and not really necessary to fatass populations the world over.

News shows studies have proven that teflon causes cancer, as does tupperware, microwaves, grills, kitchen cabinets, vinyl kitchen floors and bacon. If you want to become a cook you should never use storage containers or beef. In fact, your kitchen is 20 times more contaminated than your bathroom so the best way to cook food is to steam it by wrapping it in aluminum foil wax paper, placing it on a soap rack, and running the shower on hot for four hours. It's true. It was on the news.

Secrets your grandmother, mother, and mother-in-law never told you because they want you to keep sucking at cooking

Face it, life is a competition, especially among family members. Women in particular will rule the roost even if it means changing ingredients on the recipe card to make your version the one that made everyone sick, unlike the mother-in-law version which was raved about even to the grave. Well, here is your antidote to the mysteries of the kitchen. Tips your mama never shared but which will make life in the kitchen slightly more bearable.

Slicing onions without crying

Although some people suggest keeping your mouth closed to prevent tears, the most effective way is actually to keep your eyes closed while slicing. That way the onion fumes won't get into your tear glands in the first place.

Frying lean meats

To avoid drying out lean cuts of meat containing only 7% fat, simply fry the meat in 1/2 cup of oil.

Twiced Baked Potatoes

Bake potatoes @ 350 for 45 mins. Repeat.

How to determine if an egg is hardboiled

Spin the egg on the counter. If it stands up on its end it's boiled. If it splatters all over the floor, it isn't.

Ants in the sugar

This problem is fairly easy to solve. Simply place a black widow spider in the sugar container along with the ants and they will all be gone the following morning.

Green eggs and ham

It's been one year and finally you finished off that jar of hamburger pickles. Don't throw away the pickle juice. Put your peeled hardboiled eggs in the pickle jar and wait another year. You will now have green eggs preserved for yet another year at which time you may serve them with ham, thereby extending the lifespan of a jar of pickles by three years. These are the kind of savings you simply won't hear of anywhere else.

Martha Stewart on cutting edge ketchup dispensers

File:Ketchup Dispenser Martha Stewart