In the refrigerator there are things that must be eaten soon–carrots, spinach, a tomato, and some defrosted “chicken breast tenders.” The Bachelor is out of ordinary table salt and does not wish to use garlic salt.

So he takes the chicken, lemon-peppers about two breasts’ worth, wraps half in a whole green chili and then in aluminum foil (reflective side inward), does the same with the other half, and puts them in a gas oven set to 400° F. They will be in the oven for an hour.

He then thin-slices half the tomato and wedge-chunks the other half. A handful and a half of spinach goes into a cut-crystal bowl.

There are peeled “baby” carrots and there are treetrunky, unpeeled regular carrots. The babies get halved longitudinally and then sliced to about two-millimeter thicknesses. (At first he tried chopping without halving, and found that the chopping turned  the new slices into projectiles. He is learning by trial and error.) The little halfmoons of carrot babies will go with the chunked tomato into the spinach; half a bowl’s worth of large carrots, grated, will join a handful of raisins and a healthy squeeze of Kraft squeeze-bottle mayonnaise and four packets of Splenda, fork-mixed, to make carrot-raisin salad. The spinach salad, hand-tossed thoroughly, is dressed with two parts apple cider vinegar to one part extra virgin olive oil, pre-mixed, and then hand-tossed again, yielding salad-redolent hands that must be dishsoap-washed (“4X greasecutting action,” the label says) immediately.

The hour has passed, and the two foil packets are opened ouch-fingeredly, a handful of “Mexican-blend” cheese sprinkled/ladled on each packet, and the foil folded closed to facilitate cheese-melting. The table is set with oyster crackers and Fritos available as salt supplements–forkful of chickenchilicheese, half-handful of Fritos per bite (the oyster crackers turned out to be too bland). Bite sequence chick, carrotraisin, spinach, chicken, spinach/repeat maximized satisfaction, with cold Sapporo beer administered as needed. When the spinach and chicken were gone, the remainder of the carrot-raisin salad served well as dessert.

While the meal was prepared the Bachelor muttered to his deceased brother, “Wish you were here, Brian. I’d feed ya good.” He listened for an answer but this time there was none. Nevertheless, while eating he tried to communicate the deliciousness of the feast into the spirit world.