A holiday related post, or an unsolicited attack on my friend's mother

Neither Rob nor I have written in ages. It’s not that we don’t have things to say, it just that we haven’t had the time to write. At some point he and I will work out an actual schedule for posting and might even set a schedule to leverage some of our funny friends as pinch hitters when we are busy.

That said, since it’s a lazy short week, and I’m sure lots of you are looking for something to read while you watch the clock at work, I decided to dust off this old gem, from our dear friend Ryan Loughlin.

You see, it is Thanksgiving season and many of us are geared up for the greatest of food Holidays. Unfortunately my buddy Ryan lived most of his life in fear and dread of this day. He hated Thanksgiving and could never understand why everyone enjoyed the day and the meal. After years of soul searching and living independently the root cause of his angst was uncovered.

Ryan hated Thanksgiving because his mother was an awful cook.

I mean legitimately bad, bordering on abusive. Anyhow the post that follows is a top ten list comprised by Ryan describing the 10 worst meals his mother created during his youth….

Enjoy and sincere apologies to Ryan's dear mother. If this makes it back to her I’m pretty sure she will be upset at both Ryan for writing this and me for posting it.

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10. Mom's Homemeade Chili- A particularly poor attempt at an ethnic dish. My mother would insist on overloading this chili with kidney beans (a pet peeve of mine as virtually ALL great chili's are meat only, no beans). But what made this chili that much worse was my mom refused to serve it in a proper way, (perhaps in a bowl with some cheddar cheese?) instead opting for no cheese and dumping the whole mess over bland white rice. It looked like a dog took a crap on a pile of rice and my mom called it "dinner". I suspect my mom knew it was bad because it wasn't made that frequently and this was one of the only meals in which I was granted special permission to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of eating the disaster that was being served.

9. Mom's Chicken Parm- Chicken parm is a tough dish to screw up as it is very basic and does not include many ingredients. Incredibly my mom took on this challenge and managed to make a slam dunk meal taste awful. How did she do it? Well my mom's overwhelming cheapness is the real culprit here. Instead of buying thin sliced chicken cutlets my mom decided it was more economical to buy the full thick chicken breasts. This in general would not be a problem because any decent chef would simply slice the cutlets into thinner pieces at home. But my mother and the words "decent chef" are rarely seen next to each other, so of course she left them thick, overcooked and cheaply loaded with one slice each of shop rite brand mozzarella. An embarrassing meal at best.

8. Mom's Burgers- I could never figure out how Mom managed to make these taste so bad. In theory they were just burgers cooked in a frying pan. Somehow they were void of all flavor and made you feel sick once you were done eating them. That and they never featured any lettuce, tomato, cheese or spices of any kind. Just a plain burger on a bun with ketchup. Welfare style.

7. Mom's Mac n' Cheese- This dish was particularly offensive to anyone who has any respect for mac and cheese whatsoever. Another example of a "hard to screw up" dish that my mother made a mockery of. Her true folly on this one was her inexplicable decision to add chunks of tomato to it before placing it in a casserole dish to cook in the oven. What happened? Well exactly what you might expect. The tomatoes (which are naturally loaded with water) managed to soak the entire thing in a gross trough of warm water, which in turn managed to make the cheese not melt properly, and so what you were left with was an uninspired pile of ingredients each remaining virtually unmixed next to each other. Plain white macaroni laying sadly beside tomatoes drooping over improperly melted chunks of low fat cheddar cheese all swimming in a bath of lukewarm water courtesy of my mom's culinary prowess. Awful.

6. Mom's Cauliflower- Truly an awful vegetable no matter what, but my mom's routinely smelled as if someone had farted onto a plate of vegetables. I pointed this out to my mother not that long ago and she was highly insulted. This was a food that when forced to eat as a child i would literally put on my tongue and swallow with water like a fart flavored advil. Just gross.

5. Mom's Casseroles- There were many and each one of these were a nightmare not to be believed. Each featured ingredients that should simply never be served on the same plate. One of the worst featured potato chips that literally tasted as if they had been soaked in tap water for a half hour to wilt and then paired with meat and sour cream. Another featured a chicken dish flavored with lemon that was so sour I can only describe it as "wince inducing". Luckily as time went on these were made less frequently but in the 80's they were inescapable at 1008 Linden Ave.

4. Mom's Meatloaf- Another food ruined by my mother's refusal to add any spices to any meat. Just tasted like a big dry hunk of chopmeat that had ketchup slathered over the top of it. Took me years to accept the fact that this meal might actually taste good when prepared elsewhere

3. Mom's Potroast- This one was another treat that my mom would whip up far too frequently considering how poorly it tasted. Bone dry and spice free I literally refused to eat potroast until I tried it at a restaurant at disneyworld of all places and was blown away by how delicious it was. Thanks Mom.

2.Mom's Pork Tenderloin- Nothing even remotely "tender" about this loin. As described before, this meal was among my mother’s worst ever. Desert dry flavorless gray meat cooked on an electric George Foreman barbecue grill. Was once served for my uncle and cousins at a family get together and when my uncle tried to compliment my mother on the meal by saying it was "delicious" there was audible laughter from the crowd.

1. Mom's "Baked Chicken"- Truly THE most hated dish in the Loughlin house growing up. My mother would force us to eat this on a regular basis despite the fact that in 20 years of living with my parents not once did i ever hear anyone comment on this meal other than to bash it openly and often. It was fully deserving of its trashing as well. The meal consisted of a 12 pound bird mercilessly overcooked to the point where taking a simple bite without gravy would result in uncontrollable coughing. It was like trying to swallow a pack of cigarettes that somebody left in the trunk of a car for the summer. Just unbearable.