Online Hotdish Recipe Starts with 90,000 Word Novel About Grandma’s House

A Coon Rapids man was forced to read a 90,000 word novel about someone’s grandmother’s house in order to access an online recipe for hotdish. “All I really wanted is to know was how much soup to use” said Jordan Locke, 20, “but by the time I’d finished Chapter 37: ‘The Flat Green Line’, all the beef had gone bad.” 

The recipe in question, entitled “Quick and Easy Tater Tot Hotdish (Casserole)”, began innocently enough with a chapter describing the author’s first time enjoying her grandmother Ethel’s ‘incomparable hotdish’. It was only when the the narrative unexpectedly turned to the trenches of 1917 France that Locke realized this was going to be more than he bargained for. “The part where Ethel’s father tells a dying soldier called ‘Brooklyn’ what a hotdish is was kinda interesting,” Locke said. “But then the next chapter was just about the lilac patterned wallpaper in Ethel’s living room”.

The novel took nearly fourteen hours to complete. At one point, Locke’s hand cramped up due to excessive scrolling. “I had to constantly stop to look up words. Plus, some of the poems were completely in German,” he explained. Locke ended up eating the entire bag of frozen tater tots to maintain energy during a particularly long chapter about a charmingly creaky floorboard.

“It was really grueling,” said Locke, “but I did sorta like the way each of Ethel’s novelty coffee mugs represented a facet of her personality. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up when the author leaves a 9×13 inch non stick pan on her gravestone.” 

As of press time, Jordan Locke, still hungry but now missing several ingredients, clicked on a link called “How Long To Boil An Egg”.