Hot Dog

Ingredients:

  • 1 hot dog
  • 1 bun

Directions:

1. Poke holes in the hot dog because otherwise, it might explode.

2. Put it in the microwave for thirty seconds.

3. Put hot dog in bun.

4. Boom! That’s all you need to do!

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Stir Fry!

Ingredients:

  • Oh man, just go down to the supermarket, hit the produce section, and get some of everything. Carrots, snow peas, mushrooms, man, like, eggplant? Just whatever! Broccoli!
  • They have all the veggies together in bags labeled “Stir Fry” now, but that’s cheating.
  • Chicken if you feel fancy.
  • Rice if you have time.
  • Soy sauce from bottle or packets.

Directions:

1. Stir all of it together in a wok.

2. If you don’t own a wok, check around the apartment. The last people might have left behind a wok.

3. If not, it’s a great excuse to stop by someone’s house and introduce yourself.

4. My friend Wendy had a wok but it stayed at her house. I was over there a lot.

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Ramen

Ingredients:

  • 1 thing of Top Ramen
  • Water

Directions:

1. Fifty-nine cents. You got chicken, beef, or pork.

2. I lived on Top Ramen junior year. At least a meal a day, often two.

3. It… uh… I had to go to the health center because the salt intake was making me kind of fall apart. It was bad.

4. Boil the water, throw the thing in there, drain the water, put the powdery stuff in there.

5. I almost missed my midterm from all that salt but Wendy came to see me so that was… good. This was years before I met Mom.

6. I saw a place up on Selby Avenue the other day, a ramen restaurant. And their ramen costs like seventeen bucks for a bowl!

7. Prices have sure gone up!

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Quesadilla or Burrito

Ingredients:

  • Tortillas (1-2)
  • Refried beans (can)
  • Cheese, pre-shredded

Optional ingredients:

  • Salsa
  • Sour Cream
  • Meat
  • Guac

Directions:

1. Put beans and cheese in tortilla. Meat if you have some.

2. Microwave it. Maybe clean the microwave first. Which we never did when I was in college. I mean, it got pretty rank in that thing. We just forgot! I mean, this was our life: go to class and learn organic chemistry, Brit Lit, sociology. It was intense. And then party like crazy all weekend.

3. That microwave, though. Talk about organic chemistry. Wendy thought my quesadillas were disgusting.

4. Make sure that meat wasn’t expired. Trust me.

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Store Sauce

Ingredients:

  • Ketchup (some)
  • Mayonnaise (some)

Directions:

1. You just mix them together!

2. I learned this from this guy in my fraternity who we called The Store. Store!

3. He showed me how to do this at the Jackpot Mini-mart.

4. You get your corndog or jo-jo potatoes and you make Store Sauce.

5. We’d go there all the time, you’d just yell out, “Going to Jackpot!” and people would yell back, “Jackpot!” and walk down there.

6. You gotta eat it there, though. That food doesn’t keep.

7. We can make some. You guys want to make Store Sauce?

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Barbecue Chicken

Ingredients:

  • Cut-up chicken parts (raw)
  • Barbecue sauce (any)

Directions:

1. Slather the sauce on there and slap it on the grill.

2. Cook it all the way through. That’s important.

3. Otherwise, boom, back to the health center.

4. And friends who came to visit you before will say they’re getting a little tired of what they call your “pattern.”

5. And things will feel different when you recover and you might not have time to get things back to where you want them to be before it’s too late.

6. And then you’ll just have… life, you know?

7. Everything just goes away.

8. You graduate, you move somewhere, and it’s all over.

9. Seriously, promise me you’ll cook the hell out of that chicken.

- - -

Wendy’s in Advertising Now

Didn’t you say you wanted to get into that:

  • Advertising?

Because I can contact her if you need some advice:

1. On how to break into the business.

2. Maybe her company needs interns.

3. Or she can be a business contact.

4. You want—should I just try to get in touch with her?

5. See what happens?