Years ago, the Mets actually had a team cookbook available for sale entitled “GourMets.” Unfortunately, that book is no longer in publication leaving Brandon Nimmo on his lonesome when attempting to make himself a piece of chicken for dinner. Things did not end well:

Brandon Nimmo says he lost four pounds throwing up from his chicken and sweet potato dinner. He confirms he was NOT smiling while throwing up… but he can laugh about it now. pic.twitter.com/ufelZJJurq

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) February 28, 2019

In typical Nimmo fashion, we see him smiling and laughing about an ordeal which saw him throwing up all night and losing four pounds. We should also note it’s typical Mets fashion to see a player go down with something as simple as cooking and eating chicken. After all, as we have seen with Tom Glavine and Duaner Sanchez, Mets players can’t be trusted with so much as a cab ride.

While Glavine’s and perhaps Sanchez’s ordeals seemed to be not their fault, it would seem like Nimmo’s ordeal is completely avoidable. With that in mind, let’s review what Nimmo should have done differently.

First and foremost, if you have no idea what you are doing, don’t start with chicken. If you really want chicken, order out. If you don’t want to order out, get in touch with someone who knows what they are doing. Don’t try to cook the chicken yourself and risk food poisoning.

If you are undeterred and really want to cook that chicken, then by all means do it, but make sure you are handling it properly. The chicken you are looking to cook should be properly stored in the refrigerator. If you picked it up on your way home, just make sure it wasn’t sitting in your car too long, especially in a warm Florida climate. Chances are if it smells off before you even thing of cooking it, you’re going to get sick.

Also, you need to be really careful how you handle the chicken. If you are handling it and seasoning it before you cook it, you should be washing your hands. You should also be cleaning and disinfecting the area where you prepared the chicken. After all, even if you have cooked the chicken properly, you can still get sick from what you did before you cooked the chicken.

If you are cooking for the first time, put it in the oven where you can reduce the amount of times you actually handle it. If you are cooking at 350 degrees, it will probably take 25-3o minutes. It could take more. The best way to tell if it is done is to insert a thermometer to make sure it is cooked to 165 degrees. If not, cook longer. If you don’t have a thermometer, just cut it in half and look to see if it is cooked all the way through.

If you don’t want to use an oven, you can use things like a grill, Foreman grill, or even a pan. The best bet for any of those is to look online for a recipe and instructions on cooking temperature or time.

Ultimately, when cooking a chicken the most important thing to do is to make sure it is properly stored, and you are keeping your hands and all surfaces clean. To hear Nimmo tell it, the chicken looked cooked through and tasted good. If that is truly the case, the chances are he either mishandled or improperly stored the chicken.

At the end of the day, considering this is the Mets, all the players should probably avoid cooking their own meals all together. They should probably avoid taxi cabs to go out and get the food. Really, they should be ordering food to be delivered while sitting in their hotels or homes in bubble wrap.