by Alexander Jacobson

To all of you who go home for a wonderful home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, fuck you. Every year we visit grandma, who hasn’t cooked anything but scrambled eggs since 1965. She still burns them. Her cooking is so bad that twenty years ago the entire family collectively decided to make Thanksgiving a potluck. I share with you some of Grandma’s most notorious creations.

Corn Stuffed Turkey
I sat down at the table to find a raw chicken with seven whole ears of corn plunged into breasts and thighs. The corn was undercooked, the stuffing was Easy-Mac, and the Easy-Mac chipped my canine.

Fruit Pie
This began as an attempt at fruit cake, but cake requires measuring specific quantities. We kept trying to explain that fruit pie was really just pie… And that it really was better from Reading Market.

Peanut Butter and Jelly
Just when you thought she couldn’t go wrong. Grandma put the jelly on before the peanut butter. The instructions are IN THE NAME. No one says “jelly and peanut butter.” You’d think that somewhere between the first sandwich and sandwich thirty-five, she’d have figured out why everything was so sticky, but even the PB&J proved too formidable of an opponent for old G-ma.

“Pink Stuff”
It had a consistency like cottage cheese, but the chunks were larger and pink. It tasted okay, but no one knew what was in it. Grandma couldn’t remember. All we know is that there was an empty and expired milk carton, onion skins, and packing for roof insulation in the trash can.

The Hair-curler Surprise
She dropped her wig in the pot and didn’t even bother to take the curlers out. It was like the heart of an artichoke, but four inches longer and eighty years older. Not even ketchup could have saved this one.

Disclaimer: I love you Grams!