The "Receipts"

Taos Green Chili

Paella Don Mendi

Phad Thai

Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne (low fat)

Chicken Burger with tangy garlic mayonnaise

Albondigas Aldonze

Moroccan garbanzo and vegetable salad

Spaghetti with Gorgonzola

Chef Aldonze Hangover Cures

Sukiyaki

Boeuf Bourguignon

Ratatouille à la Robaire

Chef Aldonze retorts

Mr. Haark,

This is Aldonze! Chef Aldonze-Luiz (Loo-eeze) at your service!

I begin positively. You are real wise guy for accepting my generous offer to have a page on The Squeeze. This pleases me.

Now, to the business. I am confused. Why do you ask me send money for air travels you cannot pay? Why are you doing all of this travelling when now we need to do business? Please do not blame me or my receipt of Taos Green Chile, for we are innocent! Look to your own pent up, what do you call it or them, flatoolesseees? Thusly, I am sorry that I cannot send you money but we have not known each other so long, and I am not sure that I even like you. After your last SCUTT article you seem like a mighty nasty fellow.

As to fartisme, I am very cognisance of its meaning, and for its use on MY webbed page I must appel you a foul remnant of a donkey's behind deposits! For this awful idea you ask money from my purse? Please do not wish for Chef Aldonze-Luiz to appear comme un crétin, you imbécile!

And just now, I received an envelope from you but when I open it a little piece of blank paper has fellen out. Wait, there is a little black mark. Why, it is a largely fonted check marque! Not, as I have suspected, a cheque for pay, but a joining-of-two-lines tick! Maggot on the aged patties of Medieval donkeys, I have been wickedly betised! The services of Aldonze ... Chef Aldonze-Luiz (Loo-eeze) is not for the fun of joke making, please! See that your accounting department makes instant rectification of this cruel entity which lies on the floor where are my feet, and send a proper cheque of money, ASOP!

There are further matters. The cartoon of Aldonze is not to my liking. There are some familiars but it is not good. I have paid a camera clicker acquaintance of me to take a nice photo in my krisp, new chef's coat. I slice a handsome figure. This photo would make a better open to my page. I do not have a scammer or I would scam it to you. I must ask you to add $10 (American) to my pay cheque (plus postage & handling) for this picture. If you would like Aldonze to sign it to you and your family please add another $10 (American). I always charge $25 for this photo so you get a real good deal.

A few small words about my Paella Don Mendi receipt. I owe this to my good friend and famouse chef, the late, grate Don Mendi of the Spanish city Barcelona (Bar-Theh-lone-ahhh). For many years I know this man he never revealed his most famous Paella receipt to me. One afternoon, on his terrace high above the city, while I too was there, he imbibed too much Sangria laced with too much Fundador. His tongue went loose and he gave it up. The receipt, that is. He then staggered to the railing, tripped and fell nine stories to his death. Some imbéciles hinted that I pushed him over the edge but this is foolish. I was most sad but I must submit that I was inside happy that I then was the only chef in the world with this famouse receipt. I have never returned to Spain. I hear some crazy mention that members of Don Mendi's family will kill me if I return. Spaniards can give one the angoisses, non? Still, I think it's good I don't return.

Harold Hark ripostes

Cher Aldonze,

First, let me thank -- not you -- but my able offsider, one, Gort Slypesunder, for wiring me the money to escape from I calabrese stronzini, as a carapaced flight attendant called the mob who chased me by foot, bus and taxi all the way to the airport in Reggia. (I neglected to tell her that they had taken my triple-tooting comic opera rendition of Forza Italia on the quai at Palmi as an insult to Silvio Berlusconi.)

As penurious as myself, Mr Slypesunder nobly sacrificed himself in order to obtain the money by joining Umeruhca's other lickboot, the Australian Liberal Party. For his effort, he was presented with a taxpayer-funded cheque in the amount of $1000. In a tremulous voice he told me that conditions applied. When I asked him what they were, he became evasive and shuffled his feet. I fear he has been asked to assassinate me.

Second, upon arriving home I read your august missive and, for my first meal, tried your Paella Don Mendi, as well as the Sangria. It was truly delicious and I commend you for this ill-gotten "receipt", even though it appears to have cost its author his life and caused eternal heartache for his loved ones.

However, something was amiss -- perhaps it was the mussels -- for I spent the next 24 hours as the star in a film of my own making. When I say "film" I really mean the coating on the endless supply of bile which continued to erupt following numerous takes of vivid Sangria-coloured hurls which made me see stars I had no idea were existent.

Thirdly, for my little pay cheque joke, I accept your well-deserved epithets upon my person, you renal failure in the body of a three-legged mange-ridden dog. I shall surely instruct my accountant, Accursio Di Strana (BAP, CIA, CMA, CPA, IFAC, PFS, RIA, UYA) to post a genuine piebald chick in the next mail.

Fourthly and finally, we are all looking forward to the Pad Thai. May it conduct us through our forthcoming trial in the name of haute cuisine.