Thursday,
January 16, 2003
Idle Hands, et al
My friend and fellow Webrat Trey proposed a writing exercise on his journal. The rules were the following: "Send me a story of no more than, say, 756 words, but the story must include (1) shredded money, (2) chocolate with large tooth marks, and (3) some connection between Amish people and Chinese jambalaya."
I shouldn't read this sort of thing, I really shouldn't. And yes, this is all fiction.
From Bon Appetit
"Chef's Tales: Fusion a Trois""I never thought that the Amish knew dink about gourmet cooking," master chef Chen Kenichi told Bon Appetit, as the "Iron Chef" regular worked on a new signature dish that would be presented to the governing board of Le Cordon Bleu that evening. "Then Emeril Lagasse and I got stranded in Intercourse, Pennsylvania last year when that big blizzard shut down everything west of Philadelphia. We spent the weekend cooped up in a Holiday Inn way out in the sticks with this nice Amish family who couldn't get home because of the snow. The hotel manager had to let them stall their horse in the loading dock.
"Anyway, Emeril and I got bored, so we decided to go down to the hotel restaurant and get something to eat. The Muellers were already there, having dinner, and they didn't look too happy about it. I couldn't blame them -- you could've used the mashed potatoes to spackle walls, and I'm pretty sure snap peas aren't supposed to be turquoise. After the third time I sent back my steak, the cook came out and wanted to know, and I quote, "what the f*** my problem was." The next thing I know, he's yelling at me in German, I'm screaming back in Cantonese, and Mr. TV Star is laughing his hairy ass off at both of us.
"Finally, I get out a twenty and chuck it at the cook, telling him to get some lessons. He tears up the twenty and chucks it back at us, shouting something about being tired of wannabe cooks, and storms out of the place. The man obviously never watched Iron Chef. I look at Emeril, who's picking shreds of twenty out of his hair, and say, ' I think we've just been dissed.'
"Emeril shrugs and says, 'Like I care. If he's a chef, I'm Brad Pitt -- did you taste this crap?'
"Mrs. Mueller pipes up and says, 'Truly, I could cook better when I was a small child.' The three of us look at each other, and suddenly we're grinning. Next thing I know, we're all in the kitchen hashing out what we were going to cook for dinner. It was just the Muellers and us, so we could make what we wanted Ð the only problem was agreeing on what we wanted to make in the first place. You know Emeril Ð the man has to put essence in everything, and he kept shouting "Bam!" which just made Mrs. Mueller twitch. Mrs. M, on the other hand, had a serious sausage jones -- I guess she was used to cooking for harvest crews or something.
"We finally decided on fusion, and started rummaging through the restaurant's pantry for ingredients. I still have nightmares about some of the stuff we found. But there was enough decent stuff for a sort-of jambalaya, which made Emeril happy, and Mrs. M really liked the fact that it used sausage. Weird lady.
"So, the jambalaya. We didn't have any celery, so I added water chestnuts and bean sprouts for crunch when Emeril wasn't looking, and tossed in a little chili paste for flavor. Then Mrs. Mueller decided she didn't like the smell of the chicken, so she grilled up some nice chopped turkey breast with rosemary and garlic, and added thinly sliced butter squash on top 'to seal in the goodness.'
"We dished up the result and christened it 'Intercourse with Peking Jambalaya,'" Kenichi concluded, waving at the casserole in front of him. "It had a half-assed birth, but I gotta admit that it tastes great. In fact, the only one who didn't like it was Mrs. Mueller's youngest son Johan, who said 'it tasted like poopy.'" Kenichi winked. "But I also saw this big chunk of Hershey's with toothmarks next to his plate, so I think it was more a case of spoiled appetite than an honest critique. Besides, he's just a kid Ð they eat Pop Tarts and call it good."