You Suck

Dear Cooking Light magazine,

Attached please find a photo of the latest meal, Tex Mex Hash, that I attempted to create (the recipe coming from your most recent issue).

Rest assured that I followed your directions as close as possible, even using radishes, as you suggested.



Despite my awesome instruction-following skills, please note that the entire bottom of the 'hash' burned terribly, as evidenced in the bottom right of the afore-mentioned photo.  What were you thinking, telling me to fry shredded potatoes on medim heat for 10 minutes without stirring?  Of course they're going to burn!

Even without the charcoal flavoring, your hash still really wasn't that good.  I found the potatoes to be soggy, for one, and what is the point in shredding potatoes and frying them if they're not going to be crispy?  Also, you had me add very little enchilada sauce and cheese, so there wasn't much flavor.

I applaud your bold suggestion of the use of radishes, as I was pleasantly surprised to find they weren't nearly as putrid as I expected them to be.  However, all in all, the meal was uninteresting.

Why do you do this to me?  Don't you know how much I hate cooking in the first place?  Aren't you aware of the effort it takes to thumb through the pages of your insufferable periodical and find a recipe that inspires me?  How could you not deduce how frightening it is for me to attempt to prepare something whose main ingredients are not sugar and fat?

Furthermore, don't you know I have a very picky husband, who is not open to me cooking?  Which means that, should he deign to allow me to prepare dinner, whatever I prepare must be frickin' awesome or I'll never again be allowed to flex my culinary wings?

Well, I tried your mushroom rissotto, and you know how that turned out.  Earlier this week I attempted your Sweet Potato Chili Mac, which was pretty much met with a surly grunt.  And now your Tex Mex Hash has basically caused my husband to stop speaking to me.

If he's going to be silent on a subject, I'd prefer it not be one I've spent all day toiling over.

I'm starting to dread the arrival of your irritating tome.  I know I'll feel the need to read it all, since some poor tree sacrificed a few limbs to provide the paper for its pages.  And, as I read it, I'll forget the  abysimal failures you've previously forced me to make, and I'll find a new recipe that you're fooling me into thinking looks good.

And so I again will enter the cycle of being inspired, shopping for ingredients, fighting to be 'allowed' to prepare something delicious, spending an afternoon with the potato peeler and the hot stove, and then wallowing in the shame of yet-another tasteless meal that is met with silence (not even a "Thanks for trying, Honey; it really is Cooking Light's fault").

My already-fragile self-esteem is shot.

You guys suck.