Burns My Bacon: Encouraging Cheating

Judging from my friends’ and family’s pantries, I know packaged foods are really all the rage. I know “semi-homemade” solutions are even more popular. I’m only knocking these products a little bit, because you know, if a pre-made sauce gets you to actually cook a meal instead of ordering take-out, so be it. But you know what I don’t like? I don’t like the commercials for these products shitting all over the idea of cooking.

I was laying in bed last night watching re-runs of Friends when I saw a commercial for Progresso’s new product, Recipe Starters. Except in the commercial, some woman is trying to fire-roast her own tomatoes (with a blow torch, but whatever), and some chef-like character comes along and LAUGHS AT HER FOR DOING SO, asking sarcastically “Do you churn your own butter?” and hands her a can of fire-roasted tomato sauce.  You know what, bitch? I make my own mayo. Leave the poor girl alone! She’s alone, single, and if she wants to fire-roast her own tomatoes with a blow torch, LET HER!! She has the time, so get the fuck out of her (my) kitchen. Don’t make fun of her (me) just because she’s doing something she doesn’t have to do. She wants to make her own damn sauce from scratch; yes its difficult, yes its time consuming, but how does this affect you? That’s right, it doesn’t. LET HER DO WHAT SHE WANTS.

I know not everyone wants to cook, but for fuck’s sake, don’t shit on those of us who do, or those of us who are trying. Don’t discourage them. I miss the days when boxed dinners were marketed as alternatives to fast-food and take-out, not alternatives to from-scratch cooking.