If you had a tragedy in your life that inspired you to write a book called You Can't Unlick Grandma: How To Find A Mortician With No Sex Drive, you would still only hold second place for Saddest Book Title Ever. First place, of course, is a tie between Sonia Allison and Marie T. Smith for the heartbreaking recipe books they each called Microwave Cooking For One.
Let's look at Smith's version first. On her cover, she's prepared 21(!) dishes with her microwave, all of them to be eaten alone. Some of them are hearty three- or four-course meals. There are desserts and drinks and playful shapes carved into vegetables. This woman got dressed up, combed her hair, and posed by the cake she made in her microwave for herself that fucking says "Happy Birthday." This shit is a nightmare. Marie T. Smith celebrated her own birthday alone with a little decorated cake from her microwave. That's not a skill worth putting down in a book. That's something a ghost would do if it died badly in your kitchen. It's how a filmmaker would tell the audience a character is about to hang herself. I guarantee you that when you poke through the crust of that microwaved pie, it is nothing but human thumbs or cat faces.
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