I’m almost fifty years old, and I’m teaching myself how to cook. What’s weird is that I’ve loved the idea of cooking for many years, but for various reasons, until recently, my most advanced culinary exploits involved making an omelet. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve defrosted a lot of things. I’ve heated a lot of things. But cooking, with different ingredients and…more than one pan? Not a lot.

So the other day, I was at the market and bought a pre-made, pre-packaged meatloaf. This was something even I could cook.

The first thing I remember cooking was ramen noodles. Strange concept, ramen noodles. Not the noodles themselves, but the fact that the package contains the noodles and what is called, in Orwellian style, a ‘flavor packet.’ I have since learned that real foods actually have flavors already built in, as opposed to requiring you to add ‘flavor.’

As a young boy, I remember two things about mom’s cooking. First, I remember squash, because we grew it in the back yard. I think every meal I had at home for eighteen years had some squash-related element. Banana squash, acorn squash, zucchini—for every…single…meal. I don’t even remember if I liked it, but I do know I haven’t eaten squash in thirty-one years.

Just take the meatloaf out of the package, put it in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes and voila! Comfort food.

The other evocative memory of food and childhood I have is of my mom making what’s known in Danish as ‘frikadeller,’ which sounds so much more interesting than ‘cheap ground beef and some onion in Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom gravy.’ What I remember vividly is standing by my mother’s side and stealing chunks of raw ground beef, adding some salt, and chowing down. It was a simpler, more innocent time, and E. coli was the farthest thing from my mind.

When I got home , I realized I didn’t have one of those loaf-shaped bread baking thingies. All I had was (and a lot of my cooking stories seem to start with the phrase ‘all I had was’) a muffin pan.

I have a small library of odd and quirky old books, mostly from thrift stores, and I was delighted to find an old cookbook. I figured it would save me having to buy one. After all, it’s not like food has changed much in the last hundred years. We eat pretty much the same stuff our grandparents did, right? It’s just the technology that’s changed.

 Then inspiration hit me. What if I simply took muffin-sized pieces of the meatloaf and put those in the muffin pan? I’m a freaking kitchen savant! I should enroll in Le Cordon Bleu, or at least take a couple of adult ed cooking classes! 

 Flush with the excitement of creation, I put the pan in the oven and waited for my Meatloaf Muffins (which sounds like a villain from a Dick Tracy story). I knew I was on to something very special—I was imagining being invited to be a guest judge on “Top Chef,” or maybe Chef Ramsey would turn my dish into a challenge on “Hell’s Kitchen”-- “Come on, you stupid donkeys! I don’t believe you’re doing this to me! These are crap—where are my meatloaf muffins!”

I did learn a couple of valuable things from the Piggly Wiggly Cookbook. One, I learned that you should ‘bleach your wooden drainboard white with Clorox.’ And two, I learned that people in the twenties used something called Fluffo, which, as best I can tell, was whipped, aerated lard. I have a feeling that may have been the actual cause of the Great Depression.

While I waited for the results of my experiment , I decided to google the phrase ‘meatloaf muffins,’ just to see if anyone else had stumbled upon my creation.

I’ve never been all that adventurous as an eater, but the only things I won’t ever eat are eggplant and liver. There are two things I don’t like about eggplant--its taste and its texture. As far as liver is concerned, a lot of people will say, “You just haven’t had it the way I make it,” to which I usually respond, “It’s the organ that processes toxins out of the body—I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to eat it.”

My search revealed 89,700 hits for “meatloaf muffins.” I was crestfallen. I had allowed myself to believe, for a few shining moments, that I had invented a new food item. Instead I found recipes for Mexican Meatloaf Muffins, Italian Meatloaf Muffins—christ, even Rachel Ray has a recipe for Meatloaf Muffins. Damn you, Rachel Ray!

I won’t go to the State Fair anymore because of the food. First of all, enough with the cheese. I like a smidge of gruyere as much as the next guy, but at last year’s fair I think I saw a booth selling cheese-filled cheese. And what bizarre spell take hold that makes us eat things we would never even think of simply because they’re on a stick? I can’t picture a restaurant selling deep-fried butter and chocolate-covered bacon on a plate for ten bucks, but put that shit on a stick, and we’ll buy two of each! Listen, people. Chocolate is good. Bacon is good. That doesn’t mean chocolate and bacon are good at the same time. Stop screwing with the natural order of things. What’s next—beef soda?

Well, my trite, cliché, done-to-death-by-eighty-five-thousand-other-people Meatloaf Muffins came out alright, I guess. I even got kinda fancy-ass and topped them with some mango wasabi mustard. Betcha didn’t think of that, did you Rachel Ray?

There is one bizarre food hybrid that makes sense to me. I have to give credit to the creative visionaries at Domino’s Pizza, who sell something called an ‘oreo pizza. It’s the size and shape of a pizza…and it’s made out of Oreos. For the small group of people in this country who smoke marijuana, it’s as if the Gods of Food themselves convened, and decided to address anyone who ever thought, “I actually just want to eat cookies, but I’d like to have the illusion that I’m eating real food.”

The problem with writing about food is that now I want more food. Someday, I'll try to actually make meatloaf from scratch. But for now, I'm just hoping the Chinese joint delivers.