Cook's Corner

I used to be a decent (not great but decent) cook. But like a lot of my skills, that one disappeared…disappeared along with my ability to do lettering, certain sleight-of-hand tricks from my old repertoire and draw a decent Wile E. Coyote. I used to draw a great Wile E. Coyote but that prowess went away a decade or two ago. The last time I tried, I was doing a chalk talk for some nine-year-olds and while I could still make Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Bugs Bunny and a few others appear, when I drew Wile E. Coyote, a kid in the front row said, "That doesn't look like Wile E. Coyote" and he was right.

So I no longer cook. Every so often when I feel the urge to try again, I rush to YouTube, watch an Alton Brown video and realize I simply don't have the knowledge of how to do anything more complicated than heating up a Hot Pocket. I know my place and my place is not in the kitchen.

A few days ago at a market, I picked up a package of pulled chicken. I think at the end of the day, this market takes all the rotisserie chickens that haven't been sold and they have some kid strip off the meat and put it in a package in the deli department. However it works, I bought one. For lunch today, I invented this recipe…

I put a bunch of the chicken in a microwave-safe bowl. I poured a nice amount of Rao's Marinara Sauce over it and then I grated Romano cheese over it, mixed it up, stuck it in the microwave and heated it for 45 seconds. That was enough time for the chicken and sauce to get hot and for the cheese to melt all over it. Then I took the bowl out, gave it another stir and ate every bit of the best thing I ever made. Admittedly, that's not a vast list but, hey, it's still the best thing I ever made. Next time, I might add in some cooked pasta and that will take the place of today's invention as the best thing I ever made.

I would have been impressed if the meal had taken two hours to make. The fact that it took about three minutes added to the self-impressing. I'm not expecting any of you to try it. I'm just gloating that I did something right in the kitchen besides putting Friskies Mariners Catch into dishes for the cats in my yard. (Hey, they might like this…)