How to Cook a Casserole (When the Country is Falling Apart)

Listen, kids.  I don’t have time to go into the history of my Great Aunt Nancy and how I was raised by her and salt pork beans and how this particular dish reminds me of Sunday afternoons in Savanna. Our president is tweeting nonsense with wild abandon. We are in the full throttle of impeachment hearings. People are killing each other with semi-automatic weapons.  It’s just a Tuesday night and people gotta eat.

Here’s how this works: I list things, you go buy them, you cook them, you eat the food, you stop watching the news, you live another day.  Here are the specifics:

1. Prepare the chicken. Pound the crap out of it until it’s butterflied and the width of a piece of notebook paper.  Use the aggression you feel and the rage you are experiencing about the state of the country, your ex, the fact that your wool sweater is itchy, the fact that all of the advisors of the nation’s highest leader are being convicted of crimes. You know, the usual.  Be careful not to go overboard.  You don’t want pulverized chicken.  Save that for my Chicken Pot Pie for People with Anger Issues.

2. Put the chicken in a pan. Don’t worry about what size pan, or if it’s clean.  The heat of the oven will kill any bacteria that lingers. Pour soup, vegetables of any kind, a cup of broth, and some rice over the chicken.  Actually, just randomly choose things from your refrigerator and dump them in at your discretion, depending on how much you’ve given up on life. Do you have some green beans or wilted spinach?  Leftover Chinese food?  Beer? Chocolate cake? Balls of rage?  Throw it all in. The power grid is probably next to go, unless Trump can somehow hold up the grid with the strength of his own lies.

3. Cover with cheese. Inner shame, inappropriate attacks, and quid pro quo deals with foreign governments can be masked and hidden underneath layers of melted mozzarella.  Don’t use parmesan.  That just makes everything smell like dirty socks.  Our government may be corrupt and smell of gym rats, but your casserole doesn’t have to.

4. Bake at 350 until it’s done. This means that for at least 45 min to an hour, you can’t kill yourself.  Hang on so the house doesn’t burn down.  You smell something cooking, which shows that you are indeed capable of something in life other than screaming at congressional staffers on recorded lines to do something about health care.

5. Eat the casserole. Sure, it tastes terrible.  But your life and political state of our country are equally terrible. Don’t give any of this food to your friends or neighbors, tell them you used to watch The Apprentice growing up, or that you just made a casserole filled with chopped-up eggrolls because it really does taste like the stench hole of death and they get enough of that on CNN.

6. Throw away the dish, give up, begin drinking. Nobody has time for dishes anymore. Why bother. Eat on paper plates, microwave everything, consume fried chicken that come in plastic tubs, and pack your bags for Canada.

Enjoy!

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