Millie contributed two
recipes to the Congressional Club Cookbook, “Scrumptious Taties” (scare quotes hers)
and a Ritz Cracker Dessert.
The bad: both of these dishes are clotted beige conglomerations
of milk and salt.
The good: the shared palette is strong enough to anchor a dinner party, assuming the theme of that party is “wet nubbins.”
The good: the shared palette is strong enough to anchor a dinner party, assuming the theme of that party is “wet nubbins.”
We’ve barely scratched the surface of this cookbook, but our
exposure thus far suggests 1980s cuisine has a gloppy, bog-like quality to it,
a marbled, mottled, je-ne-sais-ew that
we can only describe as “mulpy.”
Millie Grisham makes mulpy food.
But it was enough to sway her high school sweetheart, the
steely eyed (and stomached) Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne Rep. Wayne
Richard Grisham.
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The Hon. Mr. Steal-Yo-Girl, (R-CAn I get your number?)
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After a stint
as an airman in the European Theater of World War II, the serial realtor served
California’s 33rd Congressional District for a whopping five years
before being demoted to Strom Thurmond’s caddy the night shift at the Denny’s the
*gasp* STATE LEGISLATURE.
That’s
right, folks. Politics is brutal business, even when you’re a straight white
man with hair.
Blame
Grisham’s reverse-Gatsby on a nasty bout of redistricting that left him
scrambling against a strong primary contender. After his loss, the
self-described “conservative do-gooder” spent a year directing the Peace Corps
in Nairobi, Kenya, before he was elected to California’s lower house. He later
attempted an upgrade to state senate, perhaps believing his bad luck had run
out. He was wrong.
During his brief tenure as a real boy Congressman,
Grisham sponsored nine bills, all of which died in committee. He spent most of
his political capital trying to nab tax credits for health insurance premiums
and other medical expenses.
Although we don’t have access to his medical records, we
suspect he may have needed the aid.
There are approximately 2780 calories in Millie Grisham’s “Scrumptious
Taties,” and only about 600 of them come from the potatoes.
That’s right, folks. Buckle up for another wild ride through
the clogged-artery theme park of Buttermelt and Sour Cream. Let the flavors transport
you back to a simpler, milkier time, back when men were men and women were housecoats
and you could read the word “taties” and not
hear it hissed in a Gollum-like cadence by a nearly naked Andy Serkis cavorting
in front of a green screen with tennis balls glued to his thighs.
Step 1. Fondle your cans
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The lone 1980s vegetal in its natural habitat: surrounded by starch and lactose.
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The omission of spices is not a transcription error. There’s
no spice like the comforting, chicken-adjacent hug of condensed cream soup.
Millie’s short on instructions, but the recipe advises you to
“boil peeled potatoes.” first. How long? Who knows. Our recommendation: boil
them and then wander into another room and complete a task. The potatoes are done
when the jolt of recognition hits you: oh
shit, I left the stove on.
Step 2:
Apply goo
Slice the soft potatoes and combine them with other soft
things. Specifically, a stick of melted butter, a pint of sour cream, a can of
condensed chicken soup, and a stock pot of shredded cheese.
Oh, and a green onion. Because health.
Don’t be alarmed if your potatoes aren’t neatly coated in
cow. The sauce doesn’t cling to the taties so much as it inevitably winds up
adjacent to them.
Step 3: Add some cornflakes why not
The final assembly step is also the most puzzling. Millie instructs you to “top with crushed, buttered corn flakes” as though buttering a cornflake were the most sensible thing in the world.
The final assembly step is also the most puzzling. Millie instructs you to “top with crushed, buttered corn flakes” as though buttering a cornflake were the most sensible thing in the world.
We forgot to crush the cornflakes until we’d already decoupaged
the top with dry cereal. So we just added more. Truthfully, the zestiest part
of this dish was the cornflakes, and we didn’t even butter them.
Step 4: Bake until
the butter screams for mercy
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Objects in mirror are crunchier than they appear
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We’re going to level with you here: something in this
mixture (looking at you, cream of chicken soup) made the taties impervious to heat
and time. After an hour in a 375 degree oven, they still came out with a
paste-like exterior and the disappointing crunch of a canned water chestnut.
This seems like the kind of dish that would give Mitch
McConnell heartburn: rich, but flavorless. The cornflakes are crispy. The
potatoes are also crispy. The sour cream is…present.
“SCRUMPTIOUS TATIES”
By Mrs. Wayne (Millie) R. Grisham
Adapted from the 1982 Congressional Club Cookbook
8 medium potatoes
1 stick butter
1 cup cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese
1/3 cup chopped green onion
1 pint sour cream
1 cup crushed corn flakes
2 cans Hamm’s beer
Boil peeled potatoes. Drink Hamm’s until potatoes are almost
cool and then slice or dice. Melt butter. Mix with cream of chicken soup,
grated cheddar cheese and green onions. Blend with sour cream. Add potatoes and
toss lightly. Top with crushed, buttered corn flakes. Bake 1 hour at 350°.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
“…but Liz and Tom,” you say through a mouthful of taties. “What
if I want something bland and crunchy for dessert?”
Millie’s got you covered.
Truthfully, this was one of our most edible experiments thus
far. If you forget about the salty Nabisco powder, this is basically a walnut
meringue. Unfortunately, neither of us had ever made a meringue and assumed it
was the sort of thing any competent chef could do by hand with a whisk.
They could. But they don’t.
Do not make this dessert unless you have a hand or stand
mixer (or a child in need of punishment).
Step 1: Artfully arrange your cellophane packets
Step 2: Go through all five stages of grief whisking
Full disclosure: we don’t bake a lot, so we weren’t exactly sure what “beat egg whites until stiff” entailed.
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On Tom's whisk: a stiff peak. In the bowl: a dejected peak. Not pictured: profanity. |
Full disclosure: we don’t bake a lot, so we weren’t exactly sure what “beat egg whites until stiff” entailed.
Answer: suffering. Again, DO NOT MAKE THIS RECIPE BY HAND. We
whisked until our palms calloused. We whisked until we began to hate our own
arms. We whisked as if in service of a cruel karate master, hoping it would all
be worth it.
About two-thirds of the way in, we had a serious
conversation about whether the meringue might be one of those prank inventions,
like a left-handed screwdriver or blinker fluid.
But eventually (EVENTUALLY) it came together.
Step 3: Mix your wet and branded dry ingredients
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Not convinced. |
Millie says to “fold” the egg whites into the dry and crunchy ingredients, an instruction we followed with the razor-sharp focus and tentative dove hands of a bomb disposal unit. We’re not sure if this is necessary, but we weren’t about to risk deflating those peaks.
This looks not unlike the symphony of beef when you put it
in the pie pan. The cracker crumbs and walnuts turn the surface an unpleasant
shade of gray.
This smells quite nice and nutty while it bakes. We suspect the Ritz Crackers are doing a kind of prescient salted caramel thing to the sugary meringue.
It does look like a sausage frittata, though. And we cracked
it, which we think is maybe bad? That sounds like a feature by which you might
judge a meringue. Also, Millie doesn’t say to grease the pie plate, but we’re
going to suggest you do.
Step 4: HAHA FUCK YOU
MORE WHISKING
This right here is why you always read the recipe first. No
sooner had we turned our first meringueish out to cool when we realized we were
going to have to do MORE WHISKING. You could (and probably should) just use
prepared whipped cream, but we were already planning to replace our forearms with
bionic implants, so we just soldiered on with an 8 ounce carton of whipping
cream.
If you’ve never beaten whipping cream by hand, for the love of
God, CHILL YOUR WHIPPING IMPLEMENTS.
Whip despondently until it looks like something you should
have just bought at the store, then spread over the surface of the meringue like
frosting.
It’s nutty. It’s chewy. It’s completely devoid of dried
beef.
Everything you could hope for from a Congressional Club
dessert.
RITZ CRACKER DESSERT
3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
20 Ritz crackers, rolled fine
¾ cup walnuts
8 oz. whipping cream
2 cans Hamm’s beer
Beat egg whites until stiff. Drink Hamm’s to stay hydrated
during vigorous whisking. Mix together sugar and baking powder. Fold in egg
whites. Gently fold in cracker crumbs and nuts. Bake in a 350° oven for 25
minutes in 8 inch pie pan. Cool. Top with whipped cream. Chill for 2 hours
before serving. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
I might go for the Ritz cracker dessert. I know it might take so much work to make it all perfect but the taste this Ritz cracker dessert gives, is so amazing. I am in love with that kind of taste.
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