After the overwhelming success of How To Make: Faux, which I discovered when someone said, “That actually sounds better than the time you put cinnamon in fucking mashed potatoes."
On Saturday, my friend Thrash celebrated his fifth annual Thrashgiving. Thrashgiving is a magical time of the year when we don’t give thanks and instead give our friend Thrash a series of dishes we cook for him in some sick attempt to win his love and know his gentle touch. It is better known as: “let’s have a potluck in Brooklyn and then 45 or 50 people show up and awkwardly try to drink a lot of the good booze before we all have to settle for the Goldschlager and jug wine."
I, however, was smarter and started with the Goldschlager while drinking all of the Brooklyn Lager.
But for a meal I had to prepare at the apartment I was staying at, I couldn’t be too fancy but I also had to remember that it had to survive a trip on the L on Saturday at 8 pm. So I felt a Decidedly Unvegan, Unvegetarian Potluck Dinner was in order.
YOU WILL NEED:
1 pack of turkey bacon (I bought the Butterball kind for $2.89)
1 disposable baking pan (I got the lasagna one. It was a little too big, but worked.)
1. box your choice pasta (I went with bow-ties.)
1/2 stick of butter.
3 bags of cheese. Go wild.
1/4 cup of milk or half & half. Shockingly, half & half tastes a lot better as a cream sauce than you’d think. As someone whose body can still take black coffee, I am in awe at putting any dairy product in my sweet cup of warm wakethefuckup-liquid.
The Cookening
I realize today is Thanksgiving and I made this for Thrashgiving. The main difference between the two is timeliness: Thrashgiving is held the Friday/Saturday before Thanksgiving and held in one of two apartments. Originally they were held in a railroad apartment off of Grand St in Brooklyn where kids would assemble with an assortment of meals and an eventual lack of booze because someone, but I won’t say who, would arrive and drink all the Brooklyn Lager.
But let’s not discuss my history. Instead you should fill a large pot with water. A good idea would be halfway since you’ll be dumping in an entire box of pasta. Pinch the water with salt and a bit of olive oil then bring to a boil. When boiling, add your pasta in and stir with a knife.
Not only do knives provide the kindest cut next to breaking up with a loved one, but they’re even handier when you need to mince an entire package of turkey bacon. Do that exact thing and explain to the bacon it isn’t it, it’s you and that’s why you can’t be together anymore. The bacon also cannot stay together because it must be cut repeatedly. You should add this to a pre-heated pan that I add a very, very small touch of olive oil. Bacon will always provide its own cooking fuel. Cannot stress enough how much you should mince the bacon. This should be like stirring around chopped onions.
Add a top to the bacon. You’ll be cooking it on high and basically want to make sure it gets crispy. Now I used a plastic spatula and this was a terrible idea since bits of bacon would stick to it. Normally I’m a fan of the spoonula because my old roommate in California loved them and he is pretty much the shit when it comes to cooking. So why aren’t you listening to him? Because he is a jerk who never once made me breakfast or his grandmother’s cabbage pie from the secret Russian recipe he has and I only ate it once and I hold grudges. He also walked in on me during a particularly dark moment in my life which consisted of me being in a bathrobe, playing Left 4 Dead 2 with a headset on while drinking an Aqua Velva and shouting, “BOOMER ON YOUR SIX! BOOMER ON YOUR SIX."
So. Pre-heat your oven now to 300 degrees.
Check and stir the bacon every so often to make sure it won’t burn. Your pasta should be nice and fat by now so strain when ready and let cool for a few minutes. This’ll give you ample time to put the touches (i.e. cooking) on your bacon. Now the following will take place in three layers in two steps.
Step one: from your strainer, put down the first layer of pasta in your disposable pan. Now add generous handful of all your cheeses and three pats of butter. Layer with bacon.
Step two: repeat step one twice until you’ve used everything up. Hand massage cheese, bacon, pasta and butter like a Kobe-born cow minutes prior to glorious slaughter. Add in 1/4 cup of Half&Half/Milk/C.R.E.A.M.*
Now when your oven is ready slip the pan in and cook for 30-45 minutes. After, let it sit and cool in the oven while you sit and watch the final 30 minutes of Quantum of Solace and 13 Rounds. Around the time that Willy the Fat Security Guard awkwardly dies in Rounds just check on everything in the kitchen. Remove from oven and apply tinfoil to top. Put it back into your still-cooling oven so you can finish your film and when you’re ready to leave, the pan will be warm enough to keep your hands from freezing while you transport it across the L Train to a basement off Orient Avenue and celebrate Thrashgiving.
It takes around 15-20 to prep. Total cook time should be roughly 45 minutes. Also buy a bottle of wine.
The meal serves roughly 50 people when a part of a buffet brought by 49 other people. If you actively wish to make this for your own party, I highly recommend excluding the bacon. It looked weirdly like spam after being baked.
*Please do not add cash to anything you ever try to eat. Unless you’re drinking gold in Goldschlager.