Last week, some friends and I had a little potluck dinner. I elected to bring an appetizer and a dessert. At the grocery store a few days beforehand, I was torn - should I buy something prepackaged, or attempt to cook?

Officially, I don't cook. I prefer to have my food ready immediately when I'm hungry. A few minutes in the microwave, maybe. But longer than that? I went to the Olive Garden last week and ate nine breadsticks while waiting for my dinner. The whole microwave thing also helps with my aversion to raw meat. It's not that I don't like meat; I'm not sure I could live in a world without cheeseburgers. I just get nervous around things that, if handled improperly, could give me wasting disease.

However, I decided that I could manage a meatless appetizer, and probably a meatless dessert, so I picked up a few things. For the former, I envisioned croissants baked flat, topped with an herb-flavored cream cheese and fresh vegetables. Well, semi-fresh...I bought some celery, being one of the few green vegetables I'll eat. And I really don't even like it that much. So then I bought a can of black olives, which may not technically be vegetables with all of that salt, but I like those. And I thought I had some tomatoes at home.

However, another result of not cooking is that I tend to buy a lot of fruit and vegetables, promising myself I'll eat them, and then promptly forgetting about them. Right now, I've got a bag of carrots, two apples, and a kiwi rotting in the bottom of my fridge. At least, I think it's a kiwi...Anyhow, many of the tomatoes had suffered a similar fate. So my veggie pizza consisted of lots of celery and olives, with one hacked-up tomato skin strewn across the top. It was okay. Most of my friends don't cook, either; so in instant-gratification land it was gone in minutes. Unfortunately, my burned cookies weren't as popular.