If This Is the Microwave, Why Am I Getting Cable TV?

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

If you need a cookbook that tells you how to make toast, warm canned
soup, and stick Smarties on ice cream, look no further.

This is not so much a cookbook as an extended joke. The concept is to
provide cooking instructions in terms that can be understood by those
who have been given a “career change opportunity” (i.e., are
unemployed) and find themselves entering a kitchen for the first time.
Cooking instructions are translated into manufacturing terms in order to
make these disoriented noncooks feel more at home (meaning at the office
or plant). For example, a recipe consists of a “parts list”
(ingredients) and “assembly instructions” (method).

To relate to the ex-business person, acronyms are used extensively and
all diagrams have three signoffs. “Mrs. Murphy’s Laws” are used as
fillers and to add to the tongue-in-cheek tone of the book.

The most complex recipes are for pot roast, chili, shepherd’s pie,
and caesar salad (using bottled dressing, of course). In addition to
amusing, the goals of the book are to hand-hold the novice learning to
“CANS” (“cook a nice supper”) and to prepare a “TD” (turkey
dinner). The level of instruction is pre-basic (“cans should be opened
before serving”) and the ingredients most frequently called for are
prepared mixes.

All this is quite funny for a while but the quality of humor is not
sufficient to sustain a 160-page book.