Recipes for a man who is basically alone in his life, Issue #1

[rival]

Joanna and I broke up, most of my friends moved away, and I live alone in a small apartment with a tiny, empty kitchen. Now that there is nobody around to make food for me, I have been on a hunt for very simple recipes that someone with no cooking experience and no access to human supervision or companionship can make. Bonus points if the dish is not destroyed but enhanced by the delicate, salty umami of tears and wet snot.

Here is a recipe that works pretty good. It is so simple that people will laugh at you if you tell them how you made it, and so good that there is some risk they might actually ask. The trick is to lie.

Oven Buffalo Wings
Ingredients

• Chicken wings
• Frank's Hot Sauce

Already you might be able to see why I like this recipe.

What you do

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut the chicken wings. Lazy people: the supermarket sells "party wings" that have the drummettes and the flats pre-separated. You fucking slob.
3. Put them in a baking pan spaced apart from each other. Use aluminum foil if you have it - it's easier to clean up.
4. Bake the shit out of your chicken for 40 minutes.
5. Take the tray out and turn over each piece. The juices will have come out, glueing the meat to the foil, so you might have to wriggle the pieces around a little to turn them over without tearing. This might technically be the hardest part of the recipe.
6. Bake the shit out of the other side of your chicken for 20 minutes.
7. Put the chicken wings in a bowl and slather it all with hot sauce.

I was surprised at how well oven wings compare to fried wings. Since most of the taste comes from the sauce, you're mostly aiming for getting the texture right, and an hour of baking does a pretty good job of getting the chicken nice and crispy. The juices that come out and sizzle under the wings take it the rest of the way there.

The usual disclaimer applies: Do not eat buffalo wings in front of people, especially vegetarians. It is a messy and embarrassing food. In my opinion, buffalo wings are to be considered an "alone snack," like alcohol.

Let me know if you can think of anything else to try.