By Tim Sanders

I have always wanted to write a cooking column. By which I mean just one cooking column, not a series of them. So since I’m already writing a weekly column, and that column often deals with topics I know absolutely nothing about, this week I will write about cooking. Cooking for guys.

First, let me point out that my wife is an excellent cook. She can cook anything, and make it taste good. There, I promised her I’d say that, and I did. On the negative side, however, sometimes her cooking style is a bit rigid for my taste. She is constantly telling me that in meal preparation there are things that "just don’t go together." This from a woman who eats peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
I don’t know about all guys, but some of us are a bit more flexible than our wives when we are faced with preparing ourselves something to eat. I say "preparing ourselves something to eat," because most of our wives would never allow us to prepare a meal for anyone else in the family due to silly qualms about the possibility of digestive problems. I do, however, have some general rules that I always follow when I prepare myself a little meal:

1. Hot dogs should never, ever be boiled. The only way to cook a wiener is either to grill it, or roast it over an open fire.

2. That is because the outside should be very dark, almost black, when the dog is finished. They taste great that way, and do not get your buns all soggy. By which I mean your hot dog buns.

3. And speaking of well-done, to me well-done means exactly that. I like my meat grilled nuclear style. Oh, I know there are people who like their steaks very pink to the point of occasionally attempting to leave the plate before they are eaten, but that is not the way God intended for us to grill. What separates man from the other animals is a) the opposable thumb, and b) the ability to cook his meat so that it doesn’t moo or squawk or squeal while he’s eating it. I guarantee you won’t find any meat I’ve cooked tainted with anything fatal. You might get some very sooty charcoal in your system, but no E-coli.

4. And to carry that thought a bit farther, sushi is RAW FISH! I think the name confuses some diners into thinking it is actually some exotic Asian delicacy. I have been a fisherman (not necessarily a good fisherman, but a fisherman) since I was a kid, and never, ever, have I looked at a fish I was cleaning, moved a pesky air bladder and handful of intestines aside, and said to myself, "Hey, self, now that the scales are gone, this bluegill looks delicious. I believe I’ll sneak a bite right now, before that stupid tomcat comes snooping around!"

5. There is no such thing as a tomato sandwich. Sorry, you’ve gotta have meat somewhere in a sandwich. A sandwich without meat is like Rosie O’Donnell without ... well, without a sandwich. A meatless sandwich is just two slices of bread.

6. Fried okra is delicious. Boiled okra is not. Or boiled okra is snot, if you prefer. Boiled okra is illegal in seventeen states, as well it should be. A man in Fort Lauderdale ate boiled okra and drank buttermilk at the same meal, which led to his wife’s death. An autopsy revealed she’d died of disgust.

7. Take this from somebody who once tried to eat one, rice cakes are not food. If you were to take a cardboard shoe box, break it into little pieces, and ingest the whole thing, you’d get every bit as much nutritional value, and it would probably taste better than your average rice cake.

I have some other rules, including why you shouldn’t eat slugs or snails, or put salt on watermelon, or place pineapple slices on pizza. But if I go on, you might get the idea that I, myself , am a bit too rigid in my own meal preparation. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some cooking tips which are both positive and helpful (I learned most of these while my wife was out of the house). Give these a try, guys:
 

1. You can make almost anything taste better by adding Bacon Bits, butter and onions. (It works great in oatmeal.)

2. Mix stuff up a little. Take a chance. Women just love casseroles, which are basically bowls full of lots of stuff all mixed together. But let a man mix up a bowl full of stuff, and nine women out of ten will turn up their noses and revoke his kitchen privileges. My wife is more than happy to mix green beans, cheddar cheese, cream of chicken soup, chopped water chestnuts, bean sprouts, and canned French fried onions into something called a green bean casserole. That is legitimate. But let me mix up my "Hominy Surprise," which includes a little day-old Chicken Alfredo mixed with onions, garlic powder, bacon bits, some cabbage, two large handfuls of canned hominy, a dash of ground pepper and Parmesan cheese and toss it into the microwave, and you’d think I’d shot the Pope. "Hog slop," she calls it. Then she sprays room deodorizer in the kitchen. Women lack the imagination to appreciate real culinary creativity.

3. Speaking of Parmesan cheese, not long ago I found a can of artichoke hearts on a pantry shelf. Apparently the other artichoke organs are useless, because all you ever see are the hearts. And judging from the size of those hearts, the artichoke must be a very small animal. At any rate, my wife was not at home, so I took a couple of those artichoke hearts, chopped ‘em up, added some onions, bell pepper slices, diced carrots and crunchy, flavored Salad Toppins, and placed the results in the microwave. I believe the dish would have been delicious if I hadn’t added quite so much Parmesan cheese afterwards. It made the artichoke meat very dry, and it all stuck to the roof of my mouth. The point is, I tried, and I learned something that a less courageous cook would never know.

4. If you find a week-old container of scalloped potatoes in the back of the refrigerator, you can make an entire meal out of those leftovers by tossing a couple of sausage patties into the microwave for a minute or two, and then chopping them up, adding them to those potatoes, along with a handful of Green Giant niblet corn, and stirring vigorously. Also, it goes without saying that onions and garlic powder won’t hurt.

5. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention those little baby ears of corn that come in cans. You know, the ones you can eat cob and all. I think they grow them in Rhode Island, but I’m not sure. They go well with everything–macaroni and cheese, cream of potato soup, scrambled eggs–if you slice them up. And mushrooms. I put mushrooms in all of the above whenever I can find a can somewhere. They’re good for your heart.

Or maybe that’s pinto beans, I don’t remember.