I was browsing in a bookstore when I came across this downer. I couldn't stop laughing. This might be the most depressing book I have ever seen. I was going to buy it, but I thought some sad old lady might need to buy it.
But I have to wonder, is all that food for her? They should re-title it, Cooking for the Family in Your Head.
47 comments:
This has instantly become my go-to joke when I get mad at someone online now. Thank you, dear Tony.
The cover appears to show pudding and a milkshake among the things you microwave.
I may have to pick up this book.
It looks like there's an ice cream on the cover of the book. How do you make ice cream with a microwave?
Can you really cook milkshakes in the microwave?
But my favorite irony is that I don't even own a microwave. What about "crappy gas-stove cooking for one"? Anyone?
...with foreword by Edna Krabapple
I love Leslie's favorite griddle cakes!
http://tinyurl.com/ybaswer
My favorite is one of the Amazon reviews: "Only purchase and read this book if you are a sad, lonely, and depressed person or want to become one."
I think this book is hilarious- i also found a link with an interview of this lady introducing her book, likewise funny.
http://www.microwavecookingforone.com/
If I had a microwave, maybe I wouldn't be so alone.
is that a microwave or a toaster oven?
@3/25 12:38am - that's a microwave. I have the same model in my kitchen right now. It's an Amana Radarange from the mid to late 1970s.
To make you even more depressed, let me just tell you assisted living facilities only have microwaves in their kitchenettes, because they don't want to risk fires or injuries by elderly people with mild dementia leaving a stove on and forgetting about it. So you are either microwaving your own meals or going to the dining hall, where the "chef" is going to microwave your meal in the "kitchen"...
hehe milkshakes and microwaves @katie.. i ought to try that out :)
That book looks like it was made in 1982, based on the cover alone...
How is it from 2002? rofl
Ah nevermind, the book was republished in 2002. Its from 1986.
My RadarRange says 1978 on the back.
But then, all microwave cooking is sad.
All you jokesters beware. The shirt she is wearing should be a hint that she is a kung fu master!
Does it come with a stray cat?
Hi Tony,
I just wanted to say thank you for the plug and how much I appreciate all the traffic to our website and Facebook Fan Page your post has generated. Please know I appreciate the humor, but feel obligated to add some clarification for your readers. I can't help but think you are taking a narrow point of view by assuming that a person who owns the book must necessarily be alone or lonely.
The woman on the cover of the book is my mother. She spent 10 years developing the recipes in the book. She died in November 1987, one year after she enjoyed seeing it published.
Mom developed the book because she saw that we were becoming a large society of smaller households (one or two people) mainly because the babyboomers' children were leaving the nest. Most recipes are written for four or six. Have you ever tried to take a recipe for six, and divide by three to make a meal for two? It doesn't come out right. However, if you start with a recipe for one from Mom's book and double it, you can easily make a delicious meal for two ... and fast in the microwave.
Microwave Cooking for One was published 24 years ago. Most cookbooks for the microwave written that long ago are out of print. I am so proud of my mother for her accomplishment, and have dedicated a website to her work (Microwave Cooking for One by Marie T Smith). I invite your readers to go to the Contents & Recipes section and try doubling a few of the recipes, and then tell me how sad my mother's book is. The stuffed shrimp recipe is absolutely delicious!
My mother never lived alone. She went from living with her parents, to being happily married to my father for 33 years before she died. Instead of looking at my mother's book as something sad, try thinking of it as a way to help smaller households eat healthier. All the recipes use fresh or frozen ingredients.
If you have a hankering for a cup of pudding, you don't have to make a box for four. You can make one serving for yourself ... or double it for two. (The picture on the cover is not a milk shake, it is one serving of Tapioca Fluff with a cherry on top.)
I wish you could see all the emails I've received from people who are thankful for the book. Many have told me that now they don't have to eat take-out or frozen dinners all the time, and enjoy making home-cooked meals.
Thank you, again, for your F Minus post. Although, I know you meant it as a joke, you brought my mother's book to the attention of many people who might not have found it otherwise. Humor is a wonderful way to learn.
Hi Tracy, thanks for the comment! I hope you sell a million books! I'm going to order one now.
Rest In Peace Tracy's Mom
When I was active duty in the late 80s, they did in fact have microwave milkshakes in the BX, though I never tried one. They were frozen and needed thawed.
This actually could have been a useful reference--we didn't have our own kitchens, so the choice was chow hall, restaurant, or make do. A couple of Filipino guys could do just about anything with a coffee pot, the day room microwave and a toaster oven.
Sad? Hardly. I travel constantly for work and, although I can often score a room with a microwave, ranges and pans are hard to come by in hotels. This book looks like a nice alternative to Trader Joe's frozen food or eating in restaurants and getting fat. I'm buying a copy.
It is interesting that: people who thought that people who would be interested in this book were losers had nothing better to do than to examine the picture to see is there were any non-microwave safe foods displayed.
as a vivid microwave cooker it's good to see something that is helpful. there is nothing "sad" about "microwave" or being "alone" that would "implicate" your "title" "saddest book ever". eye really don't know where to go from here so i'm gonna stop now...
Tracy, I went to your site and saw the youtube video. It's very cool how you could make strawberry jam in the microwave.
I work for the publisher and it is from the 80's and none of us know how you microwave ice cream either.
Another sad book? "I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much". He doesn't even stop drinking in the end. It's very sad.
Let the microwave healing begin! Painful and hilarious at the same time, just like frickin' life.
Excerpt from the last page:
As the microwaved apple crumble scorches the roof of her mouth and destroys the last of her tastebuds, Norma considers her life. She's tried to make friends, God knows she's tried. But not even her microwaved salisbury steak, which now had the consistency of galvanized rubber, will make her so-called friends from the knitting circle visit.
She chokes down the last of the microwaved mashed potatoes, pours herself a glass of wine and takes a small handful of Thorazine for dessert. Then she dozes on the sofa watching Matlock.
The pain will soon end.
Hmm, I may purchase this...
I might be a depressing book, but I could have used it some months ago, where I lived 3 months without a kitchen, but with a micro wave oven.
Well, she probably doesn't have to worry about leftovers. The 23 cats take care of that for her.
That's hilarious- I actually attended a microwave cooking class when I was young. http://hungrybloggers.com/news/microwave-getting-makeover
Microwave Madness
The Effects of Microwave Apparatus On Food and Humans......
The observations made by the German and Russian microwave researchers will be presented here in three categories: cancer-causing effects, destruction of nutritive value and biological effects of direct exposure of humans to microwave emissions......
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1825144/
Not only that, but check out the Amazon site and take a look at some of the other sad books about cooking for one. (Listed in the People Who Bought This Book Also Liked etc etc.)
I think my favorite was 'A Man, a Can, and a Microwave'
This really makes me sad! I could make up a story for the lady on the cover, but I would make myself cry.
Yeah, this doesn't have to be a sad lonely old person thing. My mom gave me this book when I went to college, and I used it all the time, since all I had was a microwave to cook.
great comment, tracy v! thanks for putting in your 2c. and a sincere thanks to the rest of you readers who responded like adults!
may i add this to tracy's practically-minded comments: non-normative though it may be, some of us humans prefer to live alone. a book like this would be right down our alley.
Yes, there are Microwave Milk Shakes and Pudding--They are frozen solid and you microwave them just enough (according to directions) to make them cold but soft.
--Good pudding and a nice milk shake will take some of the edge off of being lonely at dinnertime, I guess.
--Gatorindo
I totally agree, this is depressing and at the same time really funny. Lol.
The lady looks happy. With all the food she can cook in a microwave, who needs family and friends. Lol.
This is great!
I have a hard enough time cooking real food for just two.
I know what book I'm turning to when my husband deploys!
This is actually the happiest book ever, because all of her little shit kids are gone, and she can focus on life again -- at last! She can have an affair, perhaps get in touch with her inner lesbian, and forget those parasitical humans who assumed that being older meant being invisible and/or dead. Hooray for cooking for one! Woo hoo!
You have a way of taking a borderline sad subject (being completely ALONE in life) and twisting and turning it until i pee with laughter. Touché, my hero.
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