Retarded Potatoes
So there’s this really neat website called news-2-you that publishes a weekly newspaper for special education classrooms that takes the national and world news and breaks it down into simple sentences and includes a drawing for every word/concept/idea in the paper. I’d show you an example, but it’s $160 dollars, and I don’t like you nearly enough to spend that kind of money.
Anyway, the site is used in classrooms with children that are mentally retarded. It’s cool because you can teach them about newspapery things, and they actually get it. We’ve been using it in my classroom to teach about the election and the kids really enjoy it.
Each issue comes with a recipe, and in the particular election special issue there was a recipe for “Presidential Potatoes” that I thought sounded really delicious. So of course, I wrote the recipe on my hand with a pen, because I didn’t want to steal a retarded kid’s newspaper, and decided to make the meal.
The recipe called for 2 lbs of chopped up potatoes, 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, 1 packet of dry-onion-mix, and a bag to mix ‘em all in. Please note that everything in the recipe had cute little drawings next to it explaining what to do - I mean, these children are retarded. (Granted, we are letting them use an oven and a knife to chop the potatoes. I don’t know whose bright idea this was.)
I purchased everything I needed at Wegmans, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what “dry-onion-mix” was. I purchased a packet of onion mix used to mix with sour cream to make dip for chips. I could only hope it would work. If my recipe failed I could justifiably say that I am less competent than a retarded child.
So I bought an onion to chop up into the meal to spruce it up a bit, and left the store. When I got home, I baked up some delicious chicken, and then got started on the potatoes. Everything went fine…. until the onion. Oh my god. I have never really chopped an onion before, so this experience was new for me. I didn’t realize how badly people cry when they chop onions. I’ve seen people tear up a little bit before, but this was absolutely insane. I was bawling like a small child. My eyes burned, welled up and I cried myself a river. Enough onion tangent, though.
So I cooked my meal, and lo and behold - it was exquisite. The best dinner I’ve ever made myself. The chicken was great, the retarded potatoes were great, and I fell into a food coma shortly afterwards.
The point of this longwinded and unnecessary story is a simple one: Don’t make fun of my cooking! I can successfully cook mentally challenged food.
