One word: awful.

I am describing, of course, the chicken dinner that I made–and posted about at great length–yesterday. The one that was supposed to be “spectacular.” It wasn’t. Unless you mean spectacularly disappointing. Where meat and potatoes are concerned, I haven’t tasted anything that bad since 1980’s England. Never have I experienced vegetables with so little flavor, or meat with such great blandness. I must have emptied half a shaker of salt on my plate. To no avail. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat a Russet potato again. I think I have some sort of culinary PTSD.

Honestly, I don’t even know how one makes something that basic taste that horrible. But I did. It’s a feat in and of itself. Once again, I have a achieved the superlative, but not quite the way I intended.

The dish was so bad that Mike and I, after eating it, had a totally stupid fight. One of those arguments that’s truly about nothing. It got pretty heated. Then suddenly I realized what was happening.

“Oh my God. This is about the chicken. The chicken did this! ”

Mike looked at me, head cocked. Suddenly all of the anger in his eyes melted away. He laughed and shook his head. “You’re right.”

After that we were fine.

Still and all, Mike is on his way to drop a dish of it at our friend’s house. What else could we do? Another round of IKEA meatballs? I don’t think so. At least this offering isn’t frozen. And no part of it comes in packets.

And I suppose, if one gets any points at all for effort, it’s a hearty meal of sorts.