Phillies Think It’s Probably About Time You Learned How to Cook

Sure, this time of year is responsible for the majority of your dark thoughts.  Seeing George Bailey and Charlie Brown contemplate suicide on national television never really helps, either.  But hammer that morose Christmas-itude out of your skull.  The Phillies are kicking your door in and wrapping the holidays around your throat.

Yes, Cliff Lee is more than you could ever want, but as the Majestic gift shop tells us, why be satisfied with that when there are so many… things to be had!!Of course, its harder to criticize people when most of what they do is for charity.  Like a lot of their efforts this season, the Phillies and their wives put out a cook book this season, the net worth of which will be handed off to Covenant House, a homeless children’s shelter.

My experiences in the kitchen have been well documented elsewhere, and the disasters that follow are notably epic.  You might as well put me at the controls of a nuclear submarine.

Chooch’s Grilled Seabass with Mango Salsa

Once I was trying to impress somebody in a deli and I snorted some pepper from a pepper shaker.  Why?  Because I was one of the coolest kids around.

Anyways, my nose started to bleed.  Being a socially aware teenager, I didn’t get up from the table, and just sat there, filling all of the local napkins with my blood.

So that’s y chief experience with seasonings.  Chances are I’d be dared to fit my head in the bass’ mouth and wind up suffocating to death.

Sounds delicious, though.

Jose Contreras’ Cuban Yellow Rice

This one pulled me in with the promise of beer.  Jose Contreras seems to be playing it pretty close to the chest with his mother’s trust, giving away her most shadowy secret about halfway through his recipe; and ensuring Thanksgivings full of contemptible, icy stares.

The secret was beer, by the by.  I don’t know if I successfully made that connection.

Scott Proefrock’s Pretzel Salad

Wait a second.  Fucking Proefrock stole this right out of my cookbook; “So You Stumbled Home From the Bars and Are Demanding Food from Your Kitchen at 3am.”

Except instead of piling “whatever the fuck I can find,” into the casserole dish, he’s got a list of… ingredients, and… instructions.  Like when you’re playing an FPS with somebody and you have to keep changing the controls between “Regular” and “Inverted.”  Now there’s a  right way to make this terrible thing?

Listen.  The appeal of this dish isn’t the texture or taste (Equally startling attributes); its the time it takes to make it (’bout seven seconds; however long it takes me to do an arm swipe of a refrigerator shelf).  Let’s not go crazy with the stipulations.

Ha Ha Look at Cole in That Picture

I love that he’s front and center in a few local ad campaigns.  Cole is a terrible actor.  It can’t just be his fault, that xfinity commercial where he’s standing on that massive pile of cocaine and breaking I think plates with a baseball was a ridiculous concept.  And they kept making him look in the camera.  Oh god, and when he said “Sorry about the glove, man!” to the catcher after throwing a pitch so awesome it rips right through the mitt’s webbing–well.

Cole is a terrible actor.

Anyways, his picture is one of the ones they let them show in the Inquirer.  Cole is clearly seconds away from pegging his wife with that pepper he’s so nonchalantly tossing into the air.  Also, yes, they’re all wearing chef hats the whole time, just like anybody who has ever stepped into a kitchen, even by accident.