The Hark-Aldonze ripostuary of antiphonal asininity
Episode 4: The Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne Guide to Flamethrowing
The "Receipts" Taos Green Chili | Chef Aldonze blithely snorts Bon Jour, Haark! This is Aldonze. Chef Aldonze-Luiz (Loo-eeze) at your service! It pleases Aldonze that you enjoy my Phad Thai as a tasty "masterpiece". However, you must be some kind of a crustacean on the anus of a whale to trust my treasured receipt to a fool! This friend is no chef! There is no chef who would allow his assistant soused chef to make such a terrible blunder! Shame on him! Why you do want to have someone else cook my receipt? My receipts are four the simple-minded. Even a no talent hack like you should have great success. Aldonze is sorry you were so near death but you have only yourself to blame. I trust that you feel better and can now sign my check and send it. Don't make Aldonze suspicion. I do not want to lose my cold again! I am not a man to make the toys with! A propos, I have several eschews to take up with you. #1. Your Health. You always get sick. Every Webbed page of Aldonze you mention fartage, burpage, or vomitage. These are not fitted topics for a food page. If you sickly, get fixed. Please do not mention your illness on MY page! #2. I just read your recent SCUTT page. EEP? What EEP is? You some kind of cracked pot, is it? Get fixed in the head, too. #3. Aldonze is concerned about what kind of person he is dealing with. I am starting my own personal investigation of Haark. You best have no dark side. #4. Send money for receipts, fast! #5 Do you still want my photo? I sell it to you, signed, for $5! Good deal, non? You call me, Aldonze, a "swine"? If I had comprised a young Indian maiden I would be wurst than a porky! After gaining the respect of the tribal olders in Taos, N.M. such a thing was not poseeble. Why recuse me of such a bad thing? That being as it may, my exodus from this place has yearly puzzled me. I was honoured to attend a Peyote ritual. Very religious. The native Americans make a juice from a cactus and we all sit around a fire in a large tea pea and drink plenty juice served by lovely young maidens. The more Aldonze drank the more the pretty girls smile so I drink plenty, you bet! Everything went black and next I know is the Taos Greyhound bus station guarded by two cops. (Taos had only three cops so I was honoured). I was given a one way ticket to Barstow, Californian and exported on the bus (I thought it was part of the ritual). When I deposed the bus in Barstow, I watched it drive away in the dry, windy dessert and noticed four arrows sticking out of the back. Probably an Indian way of saying good-bye? Still, Aldonze does not feel it wise to return for investigating purposes. Now I do the business! As a young man I arrive in New York down and under. In those days I was called by a different name, which I shall never devolge for reasons you shall see. I found a job as a chef for a famouse crime family, The Bananas. I was personal chef to the godfather, Renzo Banana. I was plenty nervous but soon the old man and I became best friends. We would spend many nights after dinner sitting on the tearass of his fortress home, sipping Sambucco, while I listened to tales of Banana's family bush in Sicilia. While there were many famouse Bananas throughout ancient history, Renzo, to me, was the most famouse Banana of all. He was a hero to me. We became so close that he gave me this receipt for Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne. It was his grandmother's favourite dish. Renzo told me only Aldonze could make it like the old lady. One night while returning to my room (I was never allowed to leave the estate), I noticed a small package on my bed. It contained $100,000, a small envelope of white powder that smelled of burnt almonds, and a note. The note said, "Put this powder in the Lasagne and the Don with be forever gratefull. This is a secret spice from Sicily that he will enjoy." I told the Don I was making his favourite dish with a surprise spice from the old country and he was so delighted he invited his close associates to join him in the feast. From the kitchen I could hear the happy laughs and slurping of much wine. It gave me great joy to hear these men having much fun. Suddenly a strange silence came from the dining room. Upon entering, I found them all expedited. Only the old man was barely alive. He looked at me and gurgled, "I'll get you cookie man!" He then went to his baker. This was a sad moment. Aldonze was plenty scared. I grabbed the money and climbed over the back wall of the mansion, slipped by the guards with big guns, changed my name and headed West. I was shocked to read the knews that the entire Banana business had been poisoned. This, of course, was a horrid accidental! The $100,000, however, helped build my career. I still have fond memories of Renzo's late night stories. And now for the famouse Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne (from the receipt of Grandma Banana, but without the strange powder, bien sur). I have even made it less fattening for chubby people. I remain Aldonze! Chef Aldonze-Luiz at your service! Ciao! | Harold Hark mutely gasps Cher Aldonze, le plus grand salaud du monde! This is Hark. Harold "charred" Hark, at the service of your hopeful demise! I am writing this under extreme sedation, unable to speak, eat, drink or even smoke my beloved pipe. In short, there is little reason to live, save to place my shaking fingers upon this keyboard to relate the terrifying tale of my experience with your latest receipt, Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne. This time, to avoid the unpredictable ramifications associated with outsourcing (let's face it, L'Affair Phad Thai has severed the relationship between me and my old friend, the local chef), I decided to make it a family affair. Handing the recipe to my wife, I settled back with a bottle of wine and prepared for the arduous task of watching her prepare and bake the great Italian staple. Perhaps it was the 14 per cent alcohol content of the wine in combination with the rather lengthy cooking time that caused me to lose my normally acute good judgement. Perhaps, more insidiously, it is the fact that you, in your travels, have discovered a method of laying a curse on people and that you have placed a curse on me. Perhaps, as my former friend the chef said, it is simply your penchant for leaving a trail of death and/or destruction behind you. In any case, I took leave of my senses, some of which may not return for months. For, as soon as my wife removed the piping hot Lasagne from the oven, I was so overcome with the tantalising aroma that I removed the glass lid, grabbed a fork, plunged it into the molten mass of sauce and cheese and inserted the tempting morsel in my mouth. The sound of my wife screaming, "No, don't!" is still ringing in my ears. Steam and, for all I know, flames, shot from my mouth as the searing pain caused an eruption of screams not matched since the ninth century discovery that Pope John was in fact Pope Joan, and pregnant to boot. I fell writhing to the floor, whereupon the dog, utilising the maximum contents of his walnut-sized brain, came trotting over to lick me, thinking, no doubt, that it was time to play! My daughter danced in horror while my wife emptied a pitcher of water in the direction of my mouth, soaking the dog and causing me to nearly drown. Unable to apply mouth to mouth resuscitation owing to the disgusting blisters now appearing on my lips, she instructed the child to call emergency services. This proved futile as the poor girl has watched so many American sitcoms that she dialled 911, having forgotten that in this country the number is 000. Meanwhile, I was turned over in the hope that the water would take a tip from gravity and flow forth. Taking his cue from my wife, who was pounding my back to no avail, the dog saved the day by jumping on me, his tale wagging joyously. The weight of his pounce knocked the remaining liquid free. Unfortunately, he knocked the wind out of me as well, setting up a round of hideous gasps on inspiration. My daughter then rushed in with a tube of mouth gel, meant to relieve the pain of cankers, ulcers and other sores. Because my tongue was midway in its metamorphosis from a scorched, cordovan-coloured strap to a black and loathsome slab of charred offal, I was forced to apply the narcotic substance myself. "My God!" exclaimed my wife, "your tongue will have to be amputated!" "Great!" added the child, "then he can't rave at us any more about how all conservatives are scumbags." I could only protest in muffled epithets. At last I was bundled into the car and taken to the hospital, where I was greeted with Edvard Munchian recognition by the staff on duty. For some reason I was allowed to jump the lengthy queue of troubled and dying patients (made possible by years of cut backs by scumbag conservative governments!) and whisked into a room where the very same doctor who had previously sat on my chest with natal forceps administered a shot of Demerol, rinsed my mouth with a soothing foam, prescribed a month of pain killers and ordered my family to remove me from the premises. Well, there you have it. Another receipt and another fine mess! While you sit there in the cottage of your dotage, fat no doubt and free to do as you like, I will be limited to a diet of cool broth for the next two weeks -- coincidentally until your next receipt arrives! In the meantime, I am struggling to fulfil my obligations to The Squiz readership By the way, my wife and child gave Sicilian Eggplant Lasagne the thumbs up. Salaud! |