Kitchen Nightmares
19 Oct 2019Today’s prompt: “You’re the White House head chef, preparing a state dinner for the president of India. What do you serve, and how does it turn out?”
You’ve been looking forward to cooking this Indian-Cajun fusion menu for days. Vegetable samosas with potatoes, okra and mustard greens. A modified version of Oysters Rockefeller, touched up with fresh ginger. Catfish chunks fried in cornmeal and turmeric and served with naan, cilantro and diced chillies. Lamb kebabs over muffuletta salad. And a shrimp dish you call Mumbai Gumbo, which brings together elements of gumbo and curry.
You prepped the ingredients early this morning, so now you stroll confidently to the kitchen, eager to open your fridge to bags of diced serranos, marinating lamb chunks, peeled shrimp, phyllo pastry, and lime wedges.
But you don’t see any of that. Instead, there are white plastic containers labeled “Poison,” “Probably Poison,” “Could Be Poison,” “Might Actually Be Safe,” “Cyanide – We Think,” “Not Poison,” “Possible Arsenic,” and “Poison???”
“What the fuck is this?” you shriek.
Your sous chef shrugs. “Yeah, weird. It was like that when I got here.”
“Weird? This is way the fuck beyond weird!” You carefully pry the top off one of the white plastic containers. It’s a dark liquid. You sniff. Tamarind paste? It smells like it, but you can’t be sure it doesn’t have something else in it.
Okay, the ingredients you prepped are gone. But maybe you can salvage something for dinner. It won’t be the state dinner you were planning on, but with the right seasonings and dry ingredients, maybe you can get some hush puppies out to the guests and start a dahl while someone rushes out for fresh ingredients. You open the pantry.
Fuuuuuuucckk. The weird labeling system continues in here.
You’ve had enough. You grab the canister labeled “Flour?” You open the lid. Sure looks like flour. You smell it. Smells like the almost grainy nothingness of flour. You breathe deep, and scoop a little into your hand. “Here goes nothing,” you say. You open your mouth.
I’m so sorry. It was flour and anthrax.