I’ve been under the weather for the past week and a half, just pitifully unable to rise to any occasion. The only productive thing I’ve been able to handle is 1) going back through all my Liberal Rant posts and tagging the ones that need it with a new Propaganda Studies tag; and 2) going back through every post for the past twenty years and making minor edits where necessary. Also, just to recap the past 20 years of my life.

Well.

It’s been a journey for sure, as one project or another, one rant or another, one cocktail or another, bobbed to the surface and sank again. Some posts were very very depressing; others validated my existence. (Some of my Liberal Rants from the 2016 election have proven to excruciatingly predictive.)

I’ll do a little profiling of one or two posts that jumped out at me, but this one took me aback. Feel free to go read it, but here’s the gist:

Reality TV show called The Mimeograph Kitchen, in which three generations of a family are presented with a fairly unappetizing dish (see above) from one of those mimeographed cookbooks so beloved of church groups back in the 1950s/60s — each generation is then challenged to go home and update the recipe to their tastes, bring them back to the studio and compare notes.

Why producers weren’t shoving wads of cash at me for the rights to this idea is still a mystery to me, but you know what, producers? You blew it. It is no longer possible to make Mimeograph Kitchen.

I realized this with a shock as I read this paragraph:

So our reality TV show is called Mimeograph Kitchen, and it will feature besides its host three couples: 1) someone our parents’ age, 70-80, i.e., the generation that produced these things; 2) someone our age, 50-60, the generation that grew up eating this stuff; 3) someone our kids’ age, 20-30, who have never known what it’s like not to have fresh salmon with dill cream sauce and a side of roasted broccoli.  The recipe is presented and discussed by all three couples (reminiscences, reactions, etc.) , and a sample is provided for a tasting.

::sigh::

I wrote that post in 2014, eleven years ago. We are now the 70s–80s generation, and our parents are either no longer with us or are in their 80s–90s — none of whom could rise to the challenge of considering, adapting, and making a completely new recipe. So, no: Mimeograph Kitchen will never be.

So, producers, let that be a warning not to sleep on our other idea, Mama’s Stuff. That one will never die out, for lack of a better phrase.