I still think the idea has merit, even if my culinary experiment wasn't quite pleasant.

I was 19 when I moved out on my own. Like most youngsters on their own for the first time, I was flat broke. By the time I covered my rent, bills, and a few drinks on the weekend (19 year-old's priorities, right?) I had about $7 per day left for food. I didn't judge the quality of food by the taste or how healthy it was, I thought about it in terms of "how full per dollar" it would get me.

Pro tip: white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from 7/11 are the closest thing we have in real life to Lambus bread (the Elven bread from Lord of the Rings that'll fill a man's stomach with a single bite). The amount of lard packed in to those things gives them the density of a dying star, and they never - NEVER - go stale.

Back to the point: one night, I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner before rushing off to band practice. I found a box of Mac & Cheese... Win! But being the M&C connoisseur that I am, I couldn't make it using "just water". You NEED milk to do it right. But I had no milk in the fridge, and buying milk was out of the question. But then, just as I was about to give up all hope, I found a potential substitute: a bottle of Hershey's Coffee Crisp milkshake. Desperate times call for desperate measures. "Close enough!" I thought to myself.

Let's just say I didn't end up making it to band practice.

It's actually surprisingly good as long as you don't mind onion breath for days.

Ingredients:

• 1 package of ramen noodles
  
• 1 package of Shake 'n Bake bread crumbs
  
• 1 package of Cajun-Style Instant Mashed Potatoes
  
• ~10 grams of chopped walnuts from the icecream party two weeks ago
  
• ~200 grams of paraffin wax, confirmed to be edible by a quick Google search

Heat paraffin in saucepan until it starts to melt. Pay. Close. Attention. To what you're doing. Paraffin will catch fire and burn if you aren't careful with it, and it'll turn brown and taste nasty long before it does that. In fact, as soon as it starts getting soft, you'll want to take your mixture of crushed ramen noodles, Shake 'n Bake, and instant mashed potatoes, pour it on the paraffin, and start mashing it all together. If you didn't have the foresight to prepare the dry ingredients first, mix the mashed potatoes in first. This should give you a greasy sort of caked powder, like wet pie crust.

Once the mixture is complete, scrape it out of the saucepan and into some sort of container. Small bread tins work best, but tupperware will do in a pinch. Dunk the saucepan in the sink and press the walnuts into the ramen/S'nB/potato mix before it can cool.

Really, the paraffin is more of a binder rather than an actual ingredient. If you envisioned sautéing the ramen like Rice Pilaf, that dream is going out the window the moment you remember how much more volatile paraffin is compared to butter. You'll quickly settle for a sort of vegan granola bar.

If you have stool softeners, take three as an after-dinner mint.

Bun fried in butter
Beef patty
an egg, sunny side up
lettuce
tomato
A BLOCK OF DRY RAMEN NOODLES
ketchup
mayo

It was the best goddamn burger I've ever had in my entire life.

Speaking of, I remember one of my favorite after school snacks: a tall glass of milk and a jar of jalapeños. I ate that almost every day.

CC

Wierdest I've seen is my 4 yo niece. She likes to eat what she calls a mustard burrito. It's a heated up tortilla with mustard spread on it, rolled up, and Bon Appétit.