A fat man goes into a fast-food restaurant and orders his food. The cashier says that it will be a minute or two for his food to arrive. Ten minutes go by and finally, his food is delivered. The cashier hands the food to the fat guy and tells him, "Sorry about your weight."
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Have you ever noticed—how could you not—that food has become a hobby, an antidote for depression and bad moods, love quarrels, and occasionally, the lack of exercise?
See the stomach pop out, the asses spread, puffed out jowls, and genitals become like the bugs that are called ‘no-see-ums.’
People want fast food, easy food, no work food, sugar and salt. At breakfast time their thoughts are of what they’ll have for lunch, and while eating lunch, dinner is thought about. Food is almost always on our minds.
Mustn’t forget about snacks, the things that come between the major meals. Those killer, sweet snacks we all love to devour. Can’t sit still without a snack, can’t watch TV devoid of some snack food. Snacks make TV shows, and movies too, so much better; enhancing rom-com, comedy shows, and especially action and drama shows and movies. TV and movies would all be so incredibly boring and if it weren’t for that mouthful of a snack. Plus, if you have a mouthful of a snack, then people can’t interrupt your focus on the movie with questions without risking getting a face full of sprayed food during the answer.
Furthermore, without snacks, watching TV would be like having a black and white screen. Movies would be out of focus, hazy with colors running together. Even the most costly TVs would never be as clear and beautiful because HD would have no effect unless you are eating plenty of a snack. Outdoor events like sports would be just average events without the snacks. Think about it. Snacks are what give us high quality entertainment.
Food is now the drug of choice. Morbid obesity will become the number one killer by making an iron-clad contract with Mr. and Ms. Heart Attack, Inc. and the Healthy Strokes Diet plan, which is owned by the UBAGlutton, Co. Both are American owned and have offices throughout the country. Workers get free snacks because it increases their energy and production.
But there’s good news for the economy. Coffins, doorways, chairs, and tables need to be wider. The same with clothes, shoes, beds, cars, airplane seats, food pantries, refrigerators, etc. All these necessary size adjustments will be costlier. Workers and owners will profit immensely because the adjusted sizes mean more work for more pay, while the items will cost more. The same with any food service that needs more food storage space, larger dishes and bowls, etc. Employment will rise making unemployment rare. No unemployment means that the government won’t need to pay unemployment benefits, thus saving millions of dollars. All these advantages make it worth the early deaths, and the declining age of average deaths.
Now’s the point when readers ask, “Just who the hell is this guy? A food critic? A certified pessimist? A health care worker? A fitness instructor? A doctor, teacher, nurse? A food Nazi?” No, none of those. I’m a chef. I make jokes, and I love pranks. Forgive me.
My partner and I own a busy restaurant in a large city. I do the cooking, with help, of course, and my partner does the buying, which is not easy. He has to check on freshness, and delivery times, maintain cold storage units in our small warehouse, track down the people we need to remain successful, and more often every year he travels to other countries to purchase exotic foods, plus, when needed, he becomes another helper in the kitchen. I have an assistant cook and kitchen worker, so my partner rarely has to work here. We’re both happy with that arrangement and it’s one reason for our great success.
Since he is from Brazil where almost all his relatives live, he has a deep concern about the deforestation of rainforests in general and Brazil’s in particular, especially since Brazil contains sixty percent of South America’s rainforests. I sympathize with his concern and I know how frustrating it must be not to have any power to act on it.
As a chef I make people happy, entertain them, amaze them, inspire them to try new, unique and exotic taste thrills. I try to make my customers feel tiny orgasms on their tongues as if every taste bud was at the climax of its masturbation.
But lately ‘food clubs’ are becoming popular. A food club is an organization of people who have the same tastes in foods or wish to try more unique or exotic foods from other countries. They can meet whenever they decide, but once a month is usually the choice.
I love people who love food, especially when they order from my limited exotic food menu. They are the ones who bring in the newest customers so they can try the food on our limited exotic menu. Regular customers are special, but the exotic food customers are extra special.
Our business was doing well and steadily growing, when two years ago I was approached by a stout man with his plump wife and offered a business proposition. Once a month I was to serve a unique, exotic dinner meal for twenty-five to thirty people who were all members of an exotic food club. I was informed that it was an exclusive organization of well-to-do, exotic food lovers.
My partner and I would close our restaurant for a particular day, not yet decided, in order to prepare for the evening’s event which would occur from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. Doors would be opened at 5:00 for drinks and conversation. From 6:00 to 6:30 the appetizer, 6:30-8:00 the exotic dinner, 8:00-8:30 the dessert, 9:00 a guest speaker (community service seeks volunteers), 9:30 club business, and 10:00–11:00 the entertainment, but members were free to do as they wished. The entertainer was to be a singer that they had at one of their previous dinners and especially enjoyed. This club schedule proposal was approved but it was not intended to be strictly adhered to.
I stipulated that the drinks and food requirements were acceptable, but I did not have time to organize entertainment for them. That ripple was ironed out quickly when I was told that they would provide their own entertainment. Their entertainment would not involve anything active, since the members would be stuffed with the amount of food they had consumed.
This next part surprised me, but, again, it was not a problem except for the gross mental images. We were to provide four clean receptacles, with lids, placing them around the room for vomiting. I was told that some people, at every dinner, needed to vomit, and this solution would be more advantageous for the restaurant than for the club because without the vomit receptacles, where would people vomit? On tables and chairs? On other members? On the floor? I gladly accepted the responsibility for having them available.
Financial arrangements became the next subject. I was apprehensive, but to my surprise, this was the easiest of the arrangements. They offered nearly twice as much as I had intended to ask for. My partner and I accepted we all shook hands, and it was settled, except for the day of the dinner. I said I could not accept the offer if the day chosen was any weekend, Friday included. This had to be the easiest business offer I’d ever been part of because I was told that they usually meet on Monday evenings. I smiled at my partner and we both said, “We accept,” in unison. Then each of us smiled.
I thought of something else and quickly inquired, “Would the tips for the servers be favorable?”
“No problem with that. Members must leave a minimum of fifty dollars per person. I’m sure you’ll find that more than satisfactory, especially since the braggers like to throw one-hundred-dollar bills on the table.”
Quickly I figured that 50 times 30 equaled 1500, divided by 6 servers would give each server about $250, plus the $50 from me would amount to $300 for each server for one night’s work.
These people appeared to treat money as if one hundred dollars were equivalent to one penny. I was being handsomely paid, and the servers would be overjoyed with the tips. I would handle the hiring of the servers myself. It was important to have extremely competent servers. I had a few people in mind already, two of them were regular servers at the restaurant already.
What the restaurant would make for providing that dinner would amount to two to four weeks of busy business. I didn’t bother trying to figure that out more accurately, but I was certain it would be highly profitable.
We got through that first year, twelve dinners, fabulously. No complaints. We were asked to continue, and we accepted for another twelve exotic meals.
We are now almost ready for the last dinner of the second year of our exotic dinners deal. There has only been one problem. Some members complained that some of the dinners were not exotic enough for them.
My partner spent a whole week in each country that sourced the exotic meal. He sent all the recipes via email. I emailed back about the ingredients I could not find, and he had them shipped fresh from that country. It didn’t take long for the shipment via air travel. Overnight airplane deliveries from American states and two-day deliveries outside of the continental United States weren’t cheap. We’d already discussed the need to raise prices if we continued. It was getting harder and harder to please some of the members.
So far, in this second year, the dinners have included: frog legs, escargot (snails), bird embryos cooked inside the shell, raw horse meat, live baby octopus, maggot cheese, big butt ants, jungle rats and bats, puffer fish (toxic if wrong parts are eaten), blood clams, fried tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, and locusts. Plus, Durian (despite the horrible smell), Haggis (mixture of liver, heart, and lungs of sheep) Puffin hearts (large Icelandic birds), ant larvae (used as rice would be used), blood pudding, Eskimo Ice Cream (small reindeer chunks, fish and salmon eggs mixed with ice cream), balut (boiled half-fertilized duck eggs), rattlesnake, boa constrictor and python, fish heads soup, curry, bone marrow soup, birds nest soup (a delicacy in China where certain birds make nests of edible sprigs and bind the nest together with their saliva), etc.
That’s only a partial list. I have them all written down, so I don’t make the mistake of serving the same dinner, or part of a dinner, twice. I had been informed that that was the main reason this exotic food club left their other restaurant.
This food club has grown to forty members. It’s gotten much harder, but the pay has doubled due to travel expenses and the price of the exotic entrees. The members were quite pleased, so the increased payment was easily approved.
I forgot to mention that the last dinner of the year is a surprise exotic meal. Last year the exotic meal was Roasted Duck Colvert. Even thought there was not much travel (just to Canada), we thought it would be a fantastic meal. Too many members didn’t like it. How could anyone not like a meal of duck when it’s cooked with fresh ground pepper, butter, white wine, heavy crème, sweet-sour vegetables with Chinese artichokes, flour, lemon juice, chanterelle mushrooms, golden delicious apples, and yellow raisins? But it wasn’t exotic, even if the ducks were purchased in Canada. Some members didn’t like the greasy taste of the duck either. People’s tastes are different, and they wanted to taste new meals, but the Roasted Duck dinner did not go nearly as well as we had thought it would.
My partner and I decided what it would be. It’s not revealed to the members. What also hasn’t been mentioned to the club, is that my partner and I are in a discussion about not doing it anymore. The worst consequence of each dinner is the smell that lingers, not the smell of the exotic food on the table, but the involuntary and voluntary vomiting that occurs. Those smells linger. I’ve noticed a few regular customers sniffing the air. Of course, I can correct that with a deodorizer installed in the AC. I’d probably only need to use it on the day after each event, but that’s still an extra expense. Seemed necessary, however, if we continued this for another year.
My partner came up with the idea for this final surprise, an exotic meal. I went along with that idea and thought it was highly unusual. The meat comes from South America, from his homeland of Brazil. We decided that if they liked the meal we’d continue for another year, especially since these people treat money as if it were loose change in their pocket.
OK. The door just opened, and the drinking had started, mostly expensive wines and exotic drinks with liquor which we had been previously informed about, so we were prepared, especially since the club president emailed copies of recipes of the most favorite exotic drinks that were frequently ordered at these events.
It was nice to see a few more humble members who only required beer that we always have on hand in our cooler.
I could see right away that the servers and other helpers were racing around the room getting what people wanted. The help looked like blurs as they flashed by. I was pleased with my selection of workers, especially the new ones.
An hour passed, people were seated, and the appetizer was served. The appetizer was Extremadura Migas, a Portuguese cuisine of hardened, day-old bread cubes, water, paprika, garlic, and olive oil mixed with shreds of wheat bread, grilled pork, tomatoes, grilled asparagus, seasonings (red pepper paste and fresh coriander), plus carrot slivers for added color. It’s all scrambled together like scrambled eggs. An ice cream dipper, two scoops each, is used so no one can complain about someone getting more or less than they did. It’s placed on a small plate and served to increase their appetites.
After most members were finished, plates were collected and the entrée, Feijoada (Brazilian Beef Stew) was served in soup bowls. The stew was made from small beef slices, orange juice for fruitiness, colorful peppers (not green), diced red onions, red wine vinegar for a spark of tanginess, and chili powder. The stew is garnished with cilantro sprigs just before serving. Dishes of diced jalapeno peppers are in small bowls spaced along the center of the tables for anyone who wants to add more spicey heat to their stew.
The members would be allowed to eat leisurely. We listened to the dinner music composed of clinking glasses, banging bowls, the ring of knives, forks, and spoons coming in contact with each other or with the bowls and plates. Of course, there were also the sounds of lip-smacking and finger-sucking enjoyment, plus the slushy sounds of open-mouthed talking.
I noticed that our approximate timetable for the entire meal was fairly accurate.
When we noticed that the majority of people were finished, the servers quickly removed the bowls and silverware. Water glasses were refilled, and those who wanted another drink from the bar had time to do so. When most people were seated, the dessert was served.
The dessert was a traditional Brazilian dish called Brigadeiros (named after their famous Brazilian brigadier general Eduardo Gomes, from the 1940s). They are hollow fudge balls covered in colorful candy sprinkles. That, in itself, is delicious. But the climax for their taste buds was the filling, which was caramel taffy, like in bonbons.
Many members asked for more of them so it’s a damn good thing I tried a couple as my partner was watching me with excitement. He knew all about them. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed. My partner laughed and said, “No doubt at all, those are the best candy desserts you’ll ever have.” They were profoundly delicious. Due to my delightful conclusion, my partner added, “Better double your batch,” then laughed, again, this time more heartily. He slapped my back and departed to run an errand. I did double the batch and ate a couple more of them. Incredibly, outstandingly, mouthwatering delicious.
Some members finished their dessert fast, some slow. The fast ones did not linger for extra dessert. They went to the bar for more alcohol dessert, then congregated with friends in small clusters. The conversations sounded friendly and relaxed.
Their business agenda was started with the minutes read from their last meeting. None of us paid attention to any of it since it didn’t involve us in any way.
The entertainers subtly slipped into the restaurant in the middle of the business meeting. It all went smoothly and they set up their area for the entertainment. They were quiet and hardly noticed.
After the business portion ended a lady, named Sandy, sang with a delightful voice, accompanied by a violin and cello. But it didn’t seem like anyone paid too much attention to them. I also think that my partner and I, plus the helpers, enjoyed the music more than the club members did.
The vomit containers were used occasionally. Gross, but better there than on tables, chairs, or floor.
As only a few people weren’t finished with their dessert, a second serving of dessert came for those requesting it.
I sent the other helpers out of the kitchen to clear the tables. The dishwasher was loaded and emptied so frequently that my servers said they’d see the glasses, dishes, bowls, and silverware in their dreams.
When clearing the tables, the helpers overheard some members saying how exceptionally tasteful the stew was, and how they didn’t expect a stew to be exotic or so flavorful. Faces and voice tones sounded incredibly pleased, we were told.
Small, portable deodorizers were placed on the cleared tables, but they only mildly helped to dampen the smell. The helpers said they’d become adjusted to it and that they would endure much worse for the kind of pay they would receive.
It was 11:44 p.m. when the last club member staggered out of the restaurant. We’d had not one single complaint. The club president gave me a two-thumbs-up sign and a smile as he departed, saying, “I’ll be in touch.”
More accurately, I should have stated earlier that in the beginning, there were looks and voices of disappointment, expressing the view that stew did not seem like exotic cuisine, although the appetizer and the pre-dinner and after-dinner coffees were sensational. The helpers were often asked what brand of coffee it was. They answered that I was a secret mixture of foreign coffees that I mixed myself. Some of them did not understand the word ‘secret,’ and kept on asking about the coffee.
My partner and I chipped in and washed the pots, pans, and stoves. The cleanup was completed at about 4:00 a.m. Everyone was exhausted. I told the helpers to return the next afternoon for their pay and that it looked like they’d receive about $300 apiece or more if the tips were larger than expected. The tips all went into a lock box. As I was doing that the helpers were chatting excitedly, saying they were mostly picking up one-hundred-dollar bills as tips and there were so many twenty-dollar- bills that they couldn’t keep track of it all. I thanked them for their honesty, and they departed joyfully.
Alone now, we served ourselves mixed drinks. I liked gin and tonic water, my partner decided on rum and Coke. We sat without talking for a few minutes, taking deep breaths to slow our rapid heart rates caused not only by the work but also by the communal excitement that possessed all of us.
We looked at each other and smiled. We sipped our drinks, then laughed with our heads down as if we were about to stick our heads in our glasses.
“I’ve been so damn busy that I haven’t asked you how the hell you could get so much stew meat?”
With a grin, my partner elaborated. “Well, the rain forest is being cut down, so many animals are dying, not from starvation but are being shot for being pests around the encampments. Then there is the illegal hunting, large-scale hunting that can’t be stopped, even when the military was brought into the jungle-clearing camps. My brother is in the military, a high-ranking officer in charge of the encampments. He helped tremendously by ordering his soldiers to collect the meat immediately after it was shot. The animals were skinned, gutted, and frozen in a huge freezer. It helped him by disposing of the carcasses and it aided us by providing a large supply of meat. Of course, we could only handle so much, but it gave my brother the idea of selling the meat to others. He hired meat inspectors for safety concerns. Only the healthy meat was processed. But we only needed certain parts of the meat for the strew, and they were shipped frozen and sent by cargo ship since we had plenty of time.”
I chuckled and stated, “I hope it wasn’t you who had to cut the parts we needed.”
“No. The meat processors did the work. Much of the meat was collected and fed to the workers and given to charities, soup kitchens for the homeless, stuff like that. The camp workers asked for the meat because they were used to having that kind of meat for a meal. They said it taste like dark chicken meat. To them the legs, breast, ribs and back-straps were common and delicious. Everyone seemed to gain by that procedure. It worked out extremely well. Of course, I bought our stew parts for hardly anything.”
“Another drink?” I asked him.
“You betcha.”
“Let me make it for you, partner. You had the most important job concerning this dinner. I thank you for your hard work.”
I made his drink and mine. After our first sip we sighed, exhaling a lungful of air, then tipped our glasses toward one another, clinked them together, drank, and enjoyed the quiet time.
“You want a bowl of stew? There’s more.”
“I’ve been away from Brazil a long time and not used to the food anymore. I’ll pass,” he said with a chuckle, then said, “But I wish the both of us much hap-penis.”
“Ha. Good one,” I replied, then, “Don’t forget the balls.”
“Yeah. The sliced monkey penis and testicles came out much more than satisfactory. Most members raved about the tenderness and taste.”
“And what about the coffee? That was yours, too. I know some of it, but explain, OK?”
“Sure. The coffee is made of half-digested coffee beans that have been eaten by the ubiquitous Indonesian animal called a civet. They are now raised in captivity just to get this kind of coffee which is savored in the Indonesia area as a national drink. Anyway, those beans get fermented as they pass through the civet’s digestive system, then after being shit-out, they are collected, washed, and ground into coffee just as regular coffee beans are processed. It’s mildly expensive in Indonesia, but when exported it has become the most expensive coffee in the world, approximately one hundred American dollars per cup.”
“Holy shit! They were drinking coffee that was that expensive?”
“Yep. And ‘holy shit’ would be the correct term, too.”
“So, you’re telling me that they were drinking shitty coffee, but it was the most expensive coffee in the world?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, but you know I got it for much cheaper than anyone else could. But the members were still drinking fifty-dollar cups of coffee. I would guess that they drank about thirty cups. Some had no coffee, and some had two cups, but that’s about fifteen hundred bucks just for the coffee. But it was worth it, right?”
“You’re damn right. You see their thrilled faces as they drank the coffee and ate the stew?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that means we continue for another year, right.”
“If you agree, then I’m OK with it, and I don’t know if you noticed, but there was not a single complaint, once they tasted the stew.”
“Yes. We sure had the guys, by their cock and balls”
We laughed hysterically until our stomach muscles hurt. More laughter, and then I added, “Yeah. Shit happens and sometimes it turns to coffee.”
“Who do you think enjoyed the stew the most?” asked my partner.
“Hell if I know. Servers say everyone enjoyed it tremendously.”
“OK. Let me narrow it down, Who enjoyed it tremendously and showed the biggest smiles?”
“I give. I have no idea, so to whom are you referring?”
“I think the members who enjoyed the stew the most were the women.”
My partner smiled broadly, then only grinned, then switched to a muffled chuckle and stomped his feet thinking he was incredibly funny.” Then he stared at me with a cartoonish, silly grin. He kept staring and smiling at me until I finally joined him in laughter.
I said to him, “I bet you’d never tell that joke to your wife, you chauvinistic pig.”
We looked at each other. I called him an asshole and he called me a pecker-head. We laughed.
We agreed to meet in the morning to take care of our finances and pay our helpers, while the regular crew of servers, other helpers, and the assistant cook took charge of the regular daytime customers.
Dragging our feet, we went to our homes for a long and good night’s sleep.
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