Various Happenstances of SethMarch 28, 2005Hello again. It's been a while since I've blogged here.* And I'd love to be able to say that this is because I've finished the draft for my next book, or been busy finding a publisher for it, but that's just not the case. Aside from writing my column and a bit of dabbling with Lex, my time has pretty much been spent socially. But enough preface, on to the main course - from the makers of "Crunchy Crawfish Surprise(tm)", comes a new delicious recipe, cooked special for Easter: BURNTED POTATOES Recipe: Acquire four sweet potatoes. Put them on a tray and prepare to put them in the oven. Your housemate will ask if you're going to do anything interesting to cook the sweet potatoes, such as putting them in a pot with a little water and other ingredients, like ginger and spices. Stare blankly at your housemate and slowly explain that you know exactly how to cook sweet potatoes. Open oven door to put potatoes in oven. Your clever friend for whom you are cooking may suggest puncturing the potatoes somehow to prevent them from exploding. Close oven door, take a fork, and spend 20 seconds puncturing each potato. Get to the fourth potato and realize that she's done the same thing in 4 seconds with a knife. Spend 20 seconds puncturing fourth potato with a fork anyway, for symmetry's sake. Open oven door, insert tray of potatoes, close oven door. Turn oven to 450. Your housemate will mention that the oven has a feature called "pre-heat". Explain to her that since you want the sweet potatoes hot, it doesn't matter whether the heat comes pre, so long as it comes post. If she tries to say something about burning the bottom of the potatoes, ignore her. Sweet potatoes take a long time to cook, so be sure not to stay on the same floor as your kitchen. Repairing upstairs with your friend to watch Weird Al videos is highly recommended. Be sure not to set any sort of timer or pay attention to when you put the potatoes into the oven, as this kind of stress can put a damper on your evening. Some unspecified time later, after well over an hour has passed, your friend will point out that she is very hungry. Recall that long ago, you put some sweet potatoes in an oven. Go downstairs, where the sweet smell of sweet potatoes wafts sweetly through the air, and open the oven door where you can see that the sweet potatoes have spawned giant black crispy masses of sweet evil. Now, there are some folks who like their potatoes crispy, and will order them burnt. And there are some folks who don't know when to stop cooking food, and so their potatoes get burned and have a tiny charcoal-esque crust. This recipe goes yet one more step beyond that, and provides sweet potatoes that are completely and utterly burnted. Note that giant sticky piles of porous charcoal have formed all around each potato, as well as coating the entire bottom of the tray. The sweet potatoes themselves, in addition to being well-burnted on the bottom, will be covered with tiny charcoal lumps. And when you open them up to eat them, they will be utterly delicious.
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