Twinkie recipe may make for fine Thanksgiving

No one was more surprised by my ability to cook than perhaps me, and a number of my friends were quite surprised.

I guess I seemed ripe to be the sort of bachelor who merely sticks his dinner in the microwave each night and calls it good.

My family, friends and even I myself were flabbergasted by how well I seem to have taken to cooking in the four years since graduating college, admittedly a time when nuked Spaghetti-Os and cold leftover pizza is considered haute cuisine, especially on an all-male floor.

Since then, I've gradually learned to make some dishes which were mainstays in the Weaver household growing up, like "Something Mexican," an amusingly vague name for a casserole dish consisting of cooked chicken breast, salsa, cheese and Dorito chips, or pork and rice prepared in my Crock pot.

Sigh. I adore my Crock pot and the way it fills my apartment with smells of simmering.

And I'm this close to perfectly replicating the recipe for calzones from Pete's Pizza, although I've consumed even the most disastrous results with glee.

Which is not to say there are not nights my microwave goes into overdrive or the prospect of cooking up a big meal sounds about as exciting as having someone show up at my door with a plateful of free corn dogs.

I hate corn dogs.

I apparently try do most of my cooking on the weekends, particularly Sunday afternoon to chase away the doldrums of the approaching week.

But I like to stretch myself, too, and am constantly on the lookout for good new recipes - the more bizarrely delicious, the better.

Which is why I considered it a gold mine when I discovered Hostess' "The Twinkies Cookbook," copyrighted in 2006 by Interstate Bakeries Corporation.

The book is exactly what it sounds like - a compilation of recipes using one common ingredient: the stuffed yellow cake dessert with cream filling Hostess produces.

Many of the recipes are, perhaps naturally, desserts, such as Twinkie milkshakes, a twist on tiramisu called "Twinkie-Misu," a dessert Twinkie lasagna and even Twinkie sushi, which calls for the impossible-to-find green fruit leather.

What I find even more fun and exciting, however, are the legitimate recipes which call for Twinkies. On more than one occasion, I've made Twinkie pancakes to resoundingly rave reviews. It helps to be a bachelor. No one is around to criticize one's cooking, so the reviews are always a rave unless something really goes wrong.

But the Holy Grail of Twinkies is a recipe for … No, wait, you better sit down for this. If you're already sitting down, stand up, and sit down again, it's that awesome.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Get this: There's a recipe for turkey.

The book calls it "Twinkling Turkey," a name which I find nauseatingly precious and suggesting a key ingredient is glitter, when all one has to do is say they've prepared Twinkie turkey, and then sit back and watch as all the attention in the room turns to them.

What else can you say about a recipe which includes such directions as "Scrape the creme filling out of the Twinkies with a small spoon and reserve in a small bowl (for a honey mixture)" or "Crumble the (corn) muffins into a bowl, add the apple and toasted Twinkies and mix lightly (for stuffing)."

I'm pulling for this to be on the Weaver table come Thanksgiving, with mixed levels of enthusiasm.

The overwhelming response appears to be, though, "If you cook it, then we'll eat it."

Well, I'll show them.

As long as Twinkies are a key ingredient on the path to my becoming a gourmet chef, I might actually make it.

Matthew Weaver is the senior staff writer for the Columbia Basin Herald. He got at least one co-worker addicted to deep-fried Twinkies during the Grant County Fair in August, which he considers a job well done.