Kitchen Utensils Are for the Weak. And For People Who Use Them.

My brother was visiting me for about a week, and we decided to put together dinner for a few friends. Unfortunately, I forgot that my brother knows how to cook.

I have very few recipes, but I’m fine with that. I don’t mind eating the same thing every day, so it balances out. For example, one of my breakfast recipes is cereal: I get out a bowl, add Cheerios, add milk, and serve cold. If I want to mix it up a bit, I’ll use Kix instead.

Same thing with dinner. I like tuna casserole, and I have a good recipe for tuna casserole, and so I typically eat tuna casserole for dinner. Sometimes I put in pepper, sometimes not. What can I say? I’m a wild and carefree spirit.

But my brother, intent on cooking, was not exactly impressed with my kitchen setup.

“What do you mean, you don’t have a large pot?” he said. I told him I had never needed a large pot in the past, and was there any way he could make do without it? “@&*%,” he said. 

Later he asked me where I kept my measuring spoons. I laughed and laughed.

But I’d gotten myself into this mess by inviting people over for dinner, and I had to fix it. So we bought a cheap pot from my local grocery store and made mashed potatoes. Of course, that meant buying potatoes, which is something else I’d never done before.

My Brother: “Should we get red or russet?”

Me: “I think we should stick with potatoes.”

I left my brother to his own devices as I coordinated with everyone else who was coming. They asked what they could bring over. I wanted to tell them to bring “the majority of the meal,” but instead I asked for side dishes. It seemed like a safe, vague thing to say.

All in all, everything went off without a hitch. And now I’m the proud owner of a new pot and a bunch of spices I’m never going to use again in a million years, unless I try to experiment, which I probably shouldn’t. Cayenne pepper goes with Cheerios, right?