I don’t remember my maternal Grandmother ever cooking.  She must have, because she raised 5 kids and none of them starved before reaching adulthood.  Of course one of those kids was my aunt and godmother, (and it turns out the one who bought me that Leroy Jordan jersey and turned me into a Cowboys fan, so thanks for that Aunt D!), and one of my earliest memories is her and a friend babysitting my brother and I and trying to cook a chicken without first thawing it.

I’m pretty sure I remember that because it was the first time I had McDonald’s.  My brother and I were delighted; my mother less so.

My mother was a better cook, I think, than my Grandmother.  At least Mom didn’t order every meal from the pizza place, with a side order of take-out fried chicken thrown in, which is what Grandma did.  I’ll let you guess which option us ingrate kids preferred.  I would say Mom cooked more out of necessity than because she enjoyed it.

The current Mrs. Cornblower is a very good cook, although she’ll admit to any of seven felonies before admitting that.

I, on the other hand, take after my mother and grandmother.  I can grill a steak OK, and when I do salmon or tuna it usually works out OK because I just put it on a grill, count to 5, flip and repeat.

Less is more when it comes to fish like that.

Hell, I can even whip a salad together to go with the proteins.  But that’s really about it.  I rarely have the time and less so, (and more importantly), the patience to actually cook in any meaningful sense.

One of the few times I cooked for the family was when I mentioned one of Mom’s stand-by dishes, hot dog casserole.

Yes.  Hot. Dog. Casserole.

When I mentioned it (for God knows what reason), Mrs. Cornblower, groaned.  My kids, who were probably something like 8 and 6, popped up like black-footed ferrets on a prairie, wanting to know more, wanting to know if we could have it, and in fact could we have it for dinner that night.  Mrs. Cornblower said “they’re your kids” and abdicated the chef’s throne for the evening.  I made hot dog casserole that night, as follows:

Get a bunch of hot dogs.  Boil them.  Yes, hot dogs are better grilled, but a grilled hot dog doesn’t have a chance against what’s coming.

Get a package of elbow macaroni.  I suppose any pasta will do, but kids respond better to elbow macaroni than other pastas and this is very much a dish for children.  In fact, if you know an adult who likes this you may want to preemptively report them to the FBI:  they either have done or will do something soon to deserve it.

Boil the pasta.

Get a packet of frozen vegetables.  Birdseye is best but let’s face it, quality has long since fled the room.  Just boil the vegetables.

Can you tell we’re primarily Irish?

Now that everything’s been boiled, (oh, yeah, boil them in different pots), mix them together into a steaming pile of…goodness.  Yeah, let’s go with ‘goodness.’  Still looks sort of like a disconnected mess, doesn’t it?  How shall we tie this toge…

That’s right, fuckers, we’re tying this together in the whitest way possible, with mayonnaise!  And not a little of it either.  We’re talking a heaping wooden spoonful just glopped in with the food and stirred until it’s just a mayo-laced mess.

Serves 4-6 people.

When I was a kid I loved this meal.  I’m pretty sure that’s why Mom would make it, because it’s easy and we’d eat it.  My kids loved it the one time I made it, although they never asked for it again.  I had a plateful as well, as as an adult this is one of the worst possible combinations of food and food preparation that I can imagine.  It’s just terrible.  I suspect the childhood appeal is that kids will eat literally anything if you dunk it in mayo and, at least for me, mayo has no appeal to my adult tastebuds.

This is a very long way of telling you that while I can hold my own at dick-jokery I am no match for the culinary skills of our own Yeah Right, and this week’s mock draft is, with his enthusiastic approval, (at least I think it was enthusiastic), we’re drafting dishes you would like to see Yeah Right make for next season’s off-season Sunday Gravy.

With the first pick I will take the meal that got me banned from the kitchen early in my marriage, beef stroganoff.  Another of my childhood favorites, Mom made this with hamburger, (we weren’t the Rockefellers, so we weren’t whacking up good beef for this), sour cream, noodles, and occasionally mushrooms and/or onions.  The one time I tried it I forgot to drain the grease from the hamburger before putting everything in and good lord was that inedible!

Save me from myself, Yeah Right, get me a real recipe for a real beef stroganoff and I swear to Xenu I will make it.

The rest of you are on the clock…

This is the last mock draft of the off-season.  Hippo Thoughts moves in next Monday, so clean up after yourselves, would ya?

We’ll be back in February for more of this nonsense.