I Hate Cooking

I despise cooking. I abhor cooking. I word-stronger-than-abhor fucking cooking. That being said, I just whipped up some pretty good stuff.

As a Dragon Boat Festival gift I was given a baggie full of beef strips. And instructed to cook them and eat them, because they were a special offering from Pa. These are instructions that cannot be ignored. Cook and eat. Yes Drill Sargent.

I hemmed and hawwed and pretended they were too "frozen" or some-such, and that bought me a couple days. But I was hungry this evening and could not stand another dinner of microwave popcorn, so here is what I did. I put them on a stove, in a frying pan, and grilled them until they were basically one valence band away from carbon. And they were, if I must a say so myself, fantastical.

This stuff can be marketed. I could call them Carbonized Beef, but that's probably not going to grab the attention of the cognoscenti. So I am thinking Beef Chips. When we go national, our ads would be all about differentiating Beef Chips from other chip-like snacks. And, of course, explaining that we are not talking about manure based product.

In any event, delicious. But I digress from the primary point of this rant. I hate cooking.

Because, as wonderful as the Beef Chips (regular or Super-Size!) are, I now have to (a) dispose of the fat drippings and other disgusting stuff, (b) wash dishes, and (c) wash dishes. Which I guess, when it comes down to it, is the actual root cause of my rage. If I go out to eat, somebody else takes care of the dishes. If I have a bag of Mala Spicy potato chips, it is relatively little effort to dispose of the offending container. But now I gotta deal with the mess. Beef Chip, Inc. will most definitely have a well staffed dish washing department.

Aside from disposal and dishwashing issues, there are other things that bother me about cooking. To wit:

• 
  It is not an exact science. I don't have teaspoon or tablespoon measuring devices, and I certainly have no idea how much a dash is. Cook until brown? When meat is cooked, first it is not brown, then it is brown for a long time, then it is black. Which version of brown do I choose? Stir, chop, filet, knead, toss? Toss this.
• 
  Grocery shopping. You have to figure out what to buy (did I put oregano on my list?) and how much to buy (I can freeze this and use it on Saturday with the leftover noodles).
• 
  Letovers. I refuse to be the dork at work who is walking down the hall to take his Tupperware container of leftover goulash down to the communal microwave.
• 
  People who like to cook. They make like they are Michelangelo, creating some one-of-a-kind dish that is simply fabulous. And if you do not compliment them on their spectacular cooking acumen, then you are a douche. Now wait a minute, who is the real douche here...
• 
  Cooking shows. Please. Watching people cook on TV is probably the only thing I hate more than actually cooking. Bam!
• 
  Work. It is all work. Cooking is work. Dishwashing is work. Grocery shopping is work. Tolerating people who like to cook, and the cooking shows that they have spawned, is work. A certain genius. whose name is lost in the sands of time, invented a remedy for this work. It is called a restaurant.

So, dear readers, cook if you must. But I will be down at the local restaurant (look it up in the dictionary) ordering somebody else to cook for me and clean for me. I'll be having the Beef Chip special (Tuesday all you can eat!).