Thank you all for your good wishes!

OK now honestly enough of that.  The Biker is doing amazingly well, you guys.  He feels so good, in fact, that he has to be reminded that his ass just had a heart attack and that no, he cannot take the motor out of the truck and work on it.  

Yes.  

And this, of course, he must protest, because he is a Biker, but he hasn't taken the engine out of the truck yet so things are progressing well.

Me?  My neck is fine. It's all  healed and you can't even make out a scar! My pain level is almost nil.  I can type again without making 500000 mistakes, and so here I am with

                                  THE COOKBOOK OF HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11                                                  omgwtfbbvq   

Yes, kids, this is the very book.  

It's taken me until this year of our Lord 2026 to purchase (for a buck) this thing and actually bring it into my house.  

Even then, when I got to this page 

...and this ^^^ recipe....

I had to set it aside and go out for a couple of hours to get my shit together.   I drive around. I cried a little. Some stuff came up. I mean not my lunch, so that was OK, but still.

                         Lets cheer ourselves up with some lovely food photography!

There, that's better.

After a thorough perusal, I determined that I had not being singled out by the Better Homes And Gardens company after all, those many years ago.  

In the hands of an average mom (who did not smoke four packs of Marlborough Straights a day), you could get an OK meal out of this thing. 

Now, I'm not saying that the BHAGC didn't make it really, really easy to turn out an inedible mess because, I mean, it did. 

Gravy was seldom desired. Hot water was.  And that 'til tender'? How tender? If one hour is good, then won't two hours be better?

Remember, the bread used was Wonder Bread. Absolutely the most vile meatloaf imaginable. Karo Syrup; my God.

The kind of botched, horrifying, pseudo-German recipe that made it onto far too many tables in my childhood. With caraway.

The 'pressure pan' page.  

They mean a pressure cooker. 

GOD just say it out loud! PRESSURE COOKER! 

You don't want to because you know it's an implement of destruction don't you, Better Homes!

What went in came out looking like the contents of the barrel they put Lord Nelson into when he died at sea, and (assumedly) tasted about as appetizing. 

OK what the actual fuck. 

What the FUCK. 

No, really now! What the fuck??!!

ADD ONE POUND SLICED PEACHES????? 

ONE POUND OF SLICED PEACHES? 

ONE POUND OF SLICED FUCKING PEACHES?

Crisp peppers were never chosen. No, stuffed peppers must always be flubby. Pale green, wrinkled, shriveled and and flubby, looking something like the Jolly Green Giants' scrotum, and swimming in water.

Anybody out there remember candied dill pickles?  Sadly, I do. I also remember my uncle Sonny barbecuing these things, and them catching on fire like a flock of oiled bats, and him slinging them off the skewer into the bushes beside the garage and then blaming their dog Buddy for eating them when my aunt Lilian asked what happened.

Only today do I realize what that man must have suffered at Lil's table. 

With a little common sense, though, you could just skip those recipes.  And honestly, not even my mom looked at this

                     

...and thought 'hey, that sounds dee-licious!' because no, it does not.  Noone sane would attempt this.  I mean, my aunt Lilian would, but that just proves the rule.

Now I'm going to go hand wash my delicates. 

                                                                      You should too.