February 28, 2006

-The following is an excerpt from the February 28, 2006 edition of The Tulsa Tribune.

What's Cookin' Jammy?  Culinary Advice for Men

by James "Jammy" Handinsaw

Dear Jammy,

As your editor, I was just wondering where the hell you've been the last two weeks?  I had to rerun your Chili's restaurant review last week.  Until I saw your beat up, old Datsun B 210 in the parking lot this morning, I thought for sure I was going have to rerun your "Jammy Stylin': Fall Fashion" column where you reviewed all the news tights and oversized sweaters with stuff stapled onto them at Wal-Mart.  So where have you been, and - since this is a cooking column - how can I make my mac 'n' cheese straight out of the box zestier?

Signed,  Your Editor

Dear Mister Editor,

    Where have I been the last two weeks?  Well, let me tell you, buddy, the short answer is in an unlit maximum security cell in Guantanamo Bay unlawfully detained for a crime I didn't never commit.  Now, I got to warn you that the long answer sounds like one of them old Hairy Dog Tales my Uncle Jasper used to tell us on the front porch of his trailer before it got repossessed after he hurt his back working in that illegal bauxite mine in Oolagah.  Anyway, it all started two weeks ago when me and my common law wife Jolene decided to go on a road trip to Chicago.  Her aunt had read in the paper that Jolene's biological dad had just gotten out of prison after doing six years for an armored car robbery.  They never got back any of the money so Auntie Hagar thought this might be the perfect time for Jolene to finally meet her birth daddy and maybe score enough cash from him to finish that last semester of her cosmetology degree at the Fluff U Beauty College in Sapulpa.

    The sad fact was that we weren't the first folks to have the same idea.  By the time we got to Chi-town the next day, Bio Dad had already been in a knife fight, escaped from custody in the emergency room at Cook County Hospital, and made his way across the border into Canada.  Now after all that driving and more than a few cocktails on the way there, Jolene and I were pretty road burnt.  We heard all the details about Bio Dad's escape on the radio.  Well, instead of just filling the cooler back up with beers and turning my rice burner around and heading back to T-town, Jolene remembered that her step-niece-in-law Felonia had just struck it rich and moved to Chicago six months ago.  Turns out she was in a strip mall in Edmund, Oklahoma when she was spotted by a modeling agent from Chicago who was in town doing a men's underwear shoot for the Dr. Phil show.  The agent saw Felonia in front of the Pretzel Shoppe and realized she was a perfect body double for Oprah Winfrey.  Next thing you know they have Felonia signed up to a contract and on a private plane to Chicago where she gets a big money job as a stand in and "clothes tech" for Oprah.  Seems that she is a perfect size eleven and the exact same height and build as Oprah.  Her job is to break in Oprah's clothes for her every day.  What she does is get up every morning and squeeze into brand new jeans and sweaters and dresses and what have you and get them all good and stretched out and comfy so Oprah can fit into them for her TV show every day.  They pay her ten thousand bucks a month to live in the condo next door to Oprah for free and spend all her time just laying around watching the soaps, eating all the junk food she wants, and stretching out clothes for the most powerful woman in the world.  Anyway, Jolene and Felonia has always been good friends, even after her step uncle and Jolene busted up and had a real nasty divorce that wound up puttin' both of them in stir for a couple of months.  So Jolene got her on the cell phone.  We didn't even realize it, but it was already noon on Tuesday.  It is just amazing how the time gets away from you during a three day power drunk.  Well, Felonia said we were welcome to crash at her super cush condo but that she had to go to work first.  Then she invited us to go with her and let us watch her work on the Oprah show.  Now I never much cared for Oprah, usually there's always something a lot more interesting to watch on the Monster Truck Channel when her show's on.  Besides it seems like all she ever does is tell fat, nasty women to feel good about themselves, but Jolene just thinks Oprah hung the moon. 

    Next thing you know we're sitting in the front row of a packed TV studio with four hundred fired up gals.  Normally, I would be in hog heaven as I tend to really go for the plus-sized girls, and it was a virtual all-you-can-eat buffet of big beauties there.  I like my women a little fluffy, don't you know.  However, to be honest I was a little tipsy at that point, and I can't say as I knew exactly where I was, and Jolene wasn't much better off.  Anyway, there we were watching Felonia up on the stage sitting on the couch and getting the seat all warmed up and comfy for Oprah's big fat ass - pardon my French.  I was sipping on a can of Diet Coke that Felonia had got me that I had doctored up with the half pint of Jackov vodka I had in that hip flask I always carry with me.  Ever since her third gastric bypass surgery broke down around Christmas, Jolene's put on a bunch more weight and had a little problem with what they call sleep apnea and narcolepsy.  Usually she sleeps wearing one of those breathing masks that makes her  sound like Darth Vader, but we didn't bring her contraption on the road so in quieter moments she has a tendency to nod off.  Funny thing was that, despite all the commotion, she didn't wake up 'til an hour after they had taken me into custody.  Anyway, in all the excitement as all her handlers rolled Oprah out, I must have drifted off myself.  When I woke up, Oprah had this little Arab dude on the couch, and he was talking all about evil American capitalism and the like.  Turns out he was this writer dude Salmon Rushdie.  But I didn't know that.  To be honest, I was dead drunk, and I must of thought it was the Jerry Springer show because when Oprah went into the aisle with her microphone to answer some hefty gal's question about the Koran I just jumped up and grabbed the mic and headed to the stage to show that smug, pushy, little foreigner what I thought of him.  By the time I ran up and got in his face and started cussing him out and spitting in his face and the like, Oprah was right on my tail.  Well, Mister Salmon made some smart crack or another, and I reached back getting ready to slap that silly, little beard off his face.  I'm just getting ready to smack him down when Oprah jumps in between us.  I caught her a good one right on the kisser, and she just freaked out and exploded.  She jumped on me and she had a good fifty pounds weight advantage over me, but I was juiced up and ready for a fight. I knocked her down, and I remember yelling at Mister Fish that I was going to go nuclear on his ass. 

    I think that was right when the first Taser dart hit me.  Now if you've been Tasered as  many times I have in altercations and domestic disputes and whatnot, you know that the best thing you can do is just sit back, hit the deck, and ride the wave.  Usually after just twenty seconds or so all the twitching has stopped, and if you play possum for a minute you can bull your way back up and get a couple of extra licks in.  I guess that's what I did because by the time the second Taser hit me I had both Oprah and Fish Boy in head locks.  Then after that it was lights out.  I came to on some kind of airplane, but they had me hooded so I couldn't make out a damn thing.  I'm pretty sure I passed out again, and the next thing you know I am in some kind of interrogation room with army guys telling me I've been charged with making terrorist threats.  Hell, I've been telling people that I'm going to get nuclear on their ass with varying degrees of success for years, and I've never been called a terrorist before, but I guess that's what I get for voting for George W. twice.  Anyway, when they talk about Guantanamo Bay, it is always "they violated my rights this" and "I didn't have no legal counsel that," but no one ever mentions the little things that make Gitmo one of the uniquest and most charming prisons I've ever been in.  Take the rooms, for instance.  Each one is solitary so you don't have some Jaildoor Johnny always telling you his sob story about he never meant to hit his special lady.  Nope, I say give me a private room with no lights and no food for a couple of days, and I can beat out that hang over and come out a new man.  Of course, some folks might complain about the "mental duress" and "psychological torture."  What they did was play Slayer and Megadeath albums at top volume all day and all night.  Hell, I loved it especially "Reign in Blood."  I'll tell you honestly that wasn't the first time I fell asleep at four in the morning with death metal blasting away.  My only complaint was that the nineteen year old jarhead metal junkie who was my jailor swore up and down that they didn't have any Metallica to put on.  After five days of resting up in solitary like that, they decided to interrogate me like crazy asking me where my bombs were and who was in my sleeper cell.  To be honest, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.  When they got around to what they called "waterboarding" me, I was having the time of my life with those young marines.  Once they strapped me down and started pouring the water on up to my nose, I could swear I was back in Cabo with Jolene that time after she pushed me into the pool.  I was "in my cups" so to speak, and I just settled right down flat on the bottom of the pool chilling out until that Latino guy lifeguard dude hauled me out.  Anyway, after ten days, the marine corps fellahs and I were tight.  I just loved it there, but they told me that if I wanted to work at Gitmo I could either sign up with the Corps - which ain't never gonna happen - or take the short cut and just become an independent contractor for Haliburton.  By the time the commandant was taking off my shackles and apologizing for the mixup before shoving me on a plane back to OKC, I had shook off my hangover, lost twenty pounds of fat, and finally caught up on my sleep.  When I asked him if he had any applications or a flier for the Haliburton jobs, he just tossed the keys to his lackey and walked away. 

    I suppose that I would still be in Gitmo now for better or worse if Jolene hadn't finally sobered up after a week of sleeping on Felonia's couch and started asking where the hell I was.  Turns out, she and Oprah became fast friends.  Over a couple of dozen orders of Chicken McNuggets at one of those all night McDonalds in the Loop, she and Felonia told Oprah all about my troubled childhood and how I was on allergy medicine and it must have caused some kind of weird reaction mixed with the Nutrasweet in all them Diet Cokes I was chugging.  I know it sounds thin, fellahs, but next thing you know those gals are up all night having a pajama party and Jolene is braiding Oprah's hair extensions so that she looks just like Ricky Williams.  It was three that morning after pouring down a few pitchers of margaritas that Oprah got on the phone to Donnie Rumsfeld - as she calls him - and got me sprung.  Fact is that I got dropped off in the army base outside of Oklahoma City a full day before Jolene got home driving my piece of crap Datsun back from Chicago.

    So, Mister Editor, that's where the hell I was the last two weeks.  And now to your question.  Here's my secret to adding that extra little zing to your box dinner of mac cheese.  Buy a box of the regular mac cheese dinner and then buy a box of the deluxe dinner.  It may cost you that extra seventy-nine cents, but let me tell you, it is worth it, brother.  What you do is add the powdered cheese flavoring from the regular  dinner into the packet of cheese sauce in the deluxe dinner.  Stir it up, and it will turn into a paste the texture of caulking.  Then smear that over just one package of the noodles cooked al dente, and you've got Jammy's Mac 'n' Cheese Megamix and what a taste treat it is!  By the way, you can feed the extra pack of dry noodles with no sauce to your stepkids or something.  No sense in wasting them.

Next on What's Cookin' Jammy?:  five tasty meals you can make with only condiments from fast food stores.