Make Dinner In Ten Minutes Or Less

Wednesday’s New York Times has an article by Chef Mark Bittman entitled “Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less.” Since anybody who doesn’t have time to cook a proper dinner doesn’t have time to read the five-page thing, I’ve picked out my favorite tips and summed up exactly what Mr. Bittman is trying to say.

1. Cook some eggs. Hey, so I start off slow.

2. Toss herbs with olive oil and serve over pasta. Pretend you’re deaf when everybody asks what happened to the sauce.

3. Go to the local fishmonger and buy some sea scallops. Cut them into -- What? You don’t have a local fishmonger, and the seafood at Piggly-Wiggly smells like Pine-Sol? Well, okay. You’ll have to skip this one.

7. Pull the leaves off a couple bunches of basil. Wash them carefully and start to pat them dry with paper towels, but after about an hour just fling them in the garbage and realize now you don't have time to eat.

8. Put a few dozen littleneck clams into --

Oops. Sorry, I forgot. Yup, you gotta skip this one too.

9. Fry a steak. Well, some folks might not have thought of it.

12. Take one large, fresh lobster, and --

Okay, look. I’m trying to be patient. You’re really trying to tell me you don’t have a local fishmonger? Where the hell do you live, Iowa? Ain’t there even a freakin’ Chinatown where you are? Maybe you should forget about cooking and think about moving somewhere real.

13. Blend together tomatoes, cucumber, and old bread. Tell the family it’s a foreign treat called “Gazpacho.” Don’t be surprised when Hubby brings a surprise guest home and tells you he’s “a Doctor.”

15. Make a ham and cheese sandwich. Use expensive ham and at least the pretentious folks won’t complain.

16. If you chop up salami and fry it, nobody’ll realize you’re serving salami sandwiches for dinner.

19. Throw some soy sauce into scrambled eggs and tell the family that people in China think it’s food.

26. Make #16 with Italian sausage. Ha! I’ll bet I can get to a thousand this way.

27. Crack an egg into a hole cut in a piece of bread. Fry. Everybody under eight will go “WOW!” and the rest can go to hell.

35. Serve cold noodles with soy sauce. Rest assured you’ve more than satisfied your family’s daily nutritional requirement for flour.

37. Cook bacon and eggs, and toss onto fancy lettuce. Tell everybody it’s Frisée aux lardons and maybe they won’t say it’s gross.

51. Top pasta with butter and pine nuts. See #35.

53. Bake eggs. Top with cheese.

56. Poach eggs. Top with cheese.

If this list had to go up to #102, “Hard-boil eggs. Top with cheese.” would have been in here too.

61. Make shrimp cocktails. Pretend to get a headache before folks start asking about the main course.

69. Buy prepackaged blintzes and cook them. Imagine how much time you’ll save when your family starts begging you to serve canned food.

72. Make #15 but hold the cheese.

76. Make #37 with balsamic vinegar instead of sherry vinegar. Christ, and I’ve still got 25 to go.

79. Give me a freakin’ break and think of your own freakin’ sandwiches for a change.

81. Combine crab meat with --

Jesus CHRIST. What the hell is wrong with you? I didn’t realize there were some special-needs readers who couldn’t catch a freakin’ cab to Balducci’s. Dude, this is the NEW YORK TIMES. If I wanted poor people to read it, I’d have submitted it to the Post.

83. Chop olives and serve over pasta. See #35.

85. Add artichoke hearts to #72.

87. Remember those eggs from #1? Grate some carrots on top of them.

93. Saute Italian sausage with fresh seedless grapes and fresh rosemary. While everybody searches your handbag for drugs, call out for pizza.

94. Fry tofu with garlic, then drown it in 1 1/2 cups ketchup. Show it to those assholes who thought your ketchup spaghetti was sad.

97. Toss some pasta with butter, cream and Parmesan. Pick up Cosmopolitan to find out how a fat girl gets a date.

99. Take a couple pounds of shrimp, and --

Oh. I. Am. So. Fucking. DONE. With. You.

101. Look me up again next week for my article, “101 Ways to Convince Child Protective Services That You Can Raise a Kid on Nothing But Eggs and Toast.”

-------------------------------------------------

Don’t believe me? Here’s the real thing:

Make Dinner In Ten Minutes Or Less.