Day Thirteen - My Culinary Expertise Is Topped Only By My Good Looks

Tomorrow is the annual Thanksgiving Potluck at work.

Once a year everyone brings in their favorite side dishes and desserts, and the upper echelon provides the turkey to feed the masses. We're planning on about 85 people all told.

Side dishes usually range from the store-bought cookies to the homemade squash casserole to the loaf of Price Chopper bread to the hand-chopped cranberry salad. You just never know what's going to be there.

My dish of choice never changes. Every year I laboriously go to the grocery store and purchase TEN WHOLE BOXES of the store brand of cornbread stuffing, along with an aluminum pan. Long about eleven-thirty or so, I begin the strenuous task of emptying ALL THOSE BOXES into the pan.

Whew. I have to rest a minute just thinking about it.

Then, after throwing the boxes away, I have to dig one of them back out of the trash in order to read the directions. In years past the directions have stated that I need boiling water in order to complete this culinary masterpiece, so I drag out a pan and BOIL WATER.

Then I decide I've worked really hard and am in need of M&Ms, so I visit the snack machine next to the break room. In case you're wondering, it takes three king-sized bags of M&Ms to get a pan of water to boil.

The directions also say to add butter or margarine to the pan, but being as I am a totally health-conscious type of person (not to mention cheap), I usually leave it out so that it will be a low-fat version and thereby add to the overall health and well-being of the general working population. I just pretend it's there instead.

By now the water is boiling pretty well, so I turn it off and add the required amount (whatever that is) to the pan along with the unboxed contents and the pretend butter.

Are you getting all this?

Then, taking a big spoon, I stir it all together. And then I put it in the oven for a while to give it that browned, crispy, hey-I-made-it-from-scratch look that we all know and love. I mean, if it didn't come out of a bird or anything.

Ouila! Side dish complete, and it's something no one else ever brings. Then again, there could be a reason for that.

I'm thinking of starting a cooking blog, and this could be the first recipe! Whadya think? Hmm?

OK, I won't quit my day job. At least they feed me there.