Please. Think of the chicken.

I've had a few roommates, most of them in domestic situations. Several of my roommates couldn't cook very well, or didn't know how to clean very well (one was extremely tidy, but hadn't any idea of how to actually clean--I am not very tidy, but I can clean like nobody's business. Like Captain Planet, we got on well).

One roommate, however, gets talked about a lot. She tried very hard towards not much result, and couldn't figure out why this was happening. This particular roommate knew how to bake (and did it often, for fundraising bake sales) but could not cook. At first she lived off of boxed frozen food until it clicked in her brain that, even at the dollar store, this was much more expensive. Then she moved on to raw ingredients, and I proceeded to be abjectly horrified.

She microwaved chicken.

Not “defrosted in the microwave.” Microwaved “until it was no longer raw” and, coincidentally, “until it bounced.”

Raw. Chicken. In the microwave.

Microwaved chicken.

The horror has yet to fade, actually. Perhaps you can tell.

I discovered this atrocity at dinner time. I cook in batches now—I cooked in srs batches then, and lived off the leftovers in busier times. This was one of those times, and my roommate, sweet, considerate thing that she was, took her dinner-in-progress out of the microwave so that I could reheat mine, because mine was faster.

“Oh no,” I said, “It's okay. I can wait.”

“Nah,” she said, grimacing. “This is taking forever. You go.”

And I looked at the plate. The plate of half-cooked chicken. I blinked, poker faced because I am my mother's daughter, and I said, suggestively, calmly, and above all, hopefully “You could cook that in a pan on the stove. A little bit of oil and a little salt. It'd cook much faster.” And taste much better, I did not say.

My roommate shook her head. “Meh,” she said, face and voice dismissive of her ability to handle a pan on the stove. This is the same young woman who had made rice-krispies treats with M&Ms in them the week before. I took my dinner, she returned her chicken to the microwave, and I retreated to my bedroom and my happy place. I heard her, later, complaining (to her cat, she talked to her cat a lot) that “yuck. How can anybody eat this? It's so... bland and rubbery.”

Yes, sweetheart, yes it is. Because meat was never meant for the microwave.

I tried over the next couple of weeks, gently, to suggest that a pan on the stove, or a cookie sheet in the oven, would be both faster, easier, and taste better. I mentioned oven bags, because while my mother and I like our poultry like we like our wine, dry enough to alarm ecologists, I know that most people do not.

Alas, alas, all was in vain.

“Seasoning,” this is what her mind retained. The next thing I saw was pathetic strips of raw chicken, so covered in Italian seasoning mix they looked like pallid slugs completely coated in leaves and grass clippings upon the plate, looking sadly at me, hoping for mercy but expecting none.

In the microwave.

I gave up. I ceased suggesting, held my peace, ignored her mutterings, and pretended we didn't have a kitchen whenever I heard her run the microwave. (Later, I will tell you why that was not the best idea.) Sometimes the best way to survive atrocity is with a little selective denial.

To this day, however, I have a crusade. It is a small movement, centered mainly in my own kitchen and those of my friends. It is called “No Meat In The Microwave.” I remember the looks of the chicken I could not save, so pitiful and so resigned. I remember it's ultimate fate. I remember the smell. I don't care how late dinner is, I don't care how hungry you are. This is why God invented the broiler. No meat in the microwave.