Culinary Disasters, Take Two
Fan.Boy hummed to himself as he entered the kitchen. He was rather
surprised that he had been rostered for food duty, but he was quite happy
to do it.
[That, and the fact that Jaelle asked his writer in the sweet,
kind way she has. :) ]
He surveyed the disaster area and poked in a few drawers. What he
discovered was not nice. To sum up, it was 5 o'clock, the LNHers wanted
dinner, and there was a definite shortage of supplies in the kitchen.
Oh well, best get stuck into it, he thought. He rolled up his
sleeves (which, being spandex, resisted his attempts), and got into it.
First, a few phone calls to make.
As LNHers started arriving in the cafeteria, they were treated to an odd
assortment of sounds from the kitchen. There were several bangs and
crashes as well as the odd tuneless whistling. This lead them to assume
that Guitar Man was in there cooking, and that the Sickbay should be
readied for use.
In the kitchen, Fan.Boy whistled happily as he prepared the meal. He had
had a few problems getting the overly large pots onto the stoves, but he
was sure the new dents in the floor would go unnoticed.
He paused again to check the recipes he had picked to perform
tonight. He scanned rec.food.recipes as well as neighbouring groups,
checking what his products looked like in comparison with what they were
supposed to be.
Given the adaptations he had been forced to make to the
ingredients, he was quite happy with the final result. Although the
smell of sulphur might be considered off-putting to some.
He checked under the sink in the cabinets, found a can of
fly-spray and sprayed a bit in the air, testing the smell. Mmm, not too bad.
He up-ended the can and squirted a generous dosage into the pot.
There, that was better.
He turned to the oven and opened the door to examine the cake he
was baking. It had risen quite high by now. Fan.Boy frowned and rechecked
its recipe. Oh, a _teaspoon_ of baking power, not a tablespoon. Hey ho, a
fairly common mistake, he thought. Still, this means there'll be more to
go around.
The quiche that rec.food.veg.cooking described sounded like a
pleasant addition to the main course, but, when the microwave dinged,
Fan.Boy thought that he might have over compensated just a little bit too
much. The amount of time in the microwave was fairly proportionate to the
amount of food. More food, more time. So, when he doubled the recipe, he
doubled the amount of cooking time. Of course, he had left out some of
the ingredients due to not having them, but that shouldn't have made that
much difference.
The final splodge proved him wrong. Still, it should still taste
nice.
Fan.Boy cast one last look around his efforts.
Time for tea, he thought.
Understandably, it was Ferris Jones who first became worried by the pot
that Fan.Boy heaved out. Perhaps it was the slime mould around the
bottom, or the look of the base barely clinging to existence that clued
him in, but whatever it was, he immediately became ill as he tried _not_
to think about what was in there.
The others soon joined him in quiet panic, but it was too late to
back out now, as Fan.Boy brought the large tray of vegetable quiche out,
and looked ready to serve. He still shot one or two concerned glances
back into the kitchen, but didn't look too disturbed by the burbling sounds.
"Er, what is it?" asked Late-Nite Lad, getting the depressed
feeling that he was about to spend the entire night cleaning whatever it
was out of the kitchen.
"It's a surprise," said Fan.Boy eagerly. "But I'm not serving yet."
The room breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"I'm waiting for a few guests to arrive," he continued.
"Oh yes, and who would they be?" asked Punctuality Lad.
A knocking on the cafeteria door ended his question. "We've
here," chorused unknown voices.
The doors swung open and in poured the contents of the LNHers worst
nightmare.
"Why are there Criminals Coming into the Cafeteria?" asked
aLLiterative Lass.
"I invited them," replied Fan.Boy. "They don't get out very
often, and I wanted to meet them. Don't worry," he said to the
disbelieving faces of the heroes. "They've promised to go back to their
homes afterwards."
"OH YEAH?" said CAPTAIN CAPITALIZE.
"Shush," said Fan.Boy, and, surprisingly, he did. "They're just
here for a meal. I thought it might be nice for everyone to get together
and eat."
"I am not sitting next to him," said Linguist Lass, pointing to
Doctor Boring.
"What's wrong with me?" asked Dr. Boring. "I have a fascinating
personality, I can remember things everyone else has forgotten, I can
repeat the entire lyrics of '2000 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall...'"
"Yes, please," said Sing-Along Lass. "After that we could do
'Row-Row-Row Your Boat'."
A banging sound startled everyone, but it was soon traced to
Fan.Boy banging on the side of the large pot with a ladle. "If everyone
could line up orderly, I can begin dinner."
While a queue more or less formed, with Manga Man battling with
Johnny Stomper for a good position, causing a wall to be destroyed in the
process. Everyone picked up a plate and utensils and filed pass Fan.Boy,
receiving a helping of quiche and, er, the main dish as they went.
"What exactly is this?" asked Cannon Fodder, sniffing carefully
at the... 'slop'.
"Um, perhaps you shouldn't eat any," advised Fan.Boy. "Wouldn't
want to upset anyone when your powers kick in."
Cannon Fodder's gape was pushed aside by King Konquerer. "I'm
King Konquerer, soon to be ruler of the Looniverse. I'm sure you've heard
of me."
"Oh, yes," said Fan.Boy nodding. "Of course I have."
King Konquerer reacted in surprise. "You have? Why? Nobody else
has." He took his meal bemusedly and walked over to a table.
"Have you heard of me?" he asked the LNHer sitting beside him.
"Huh?" replied the Forgetting One. "Who're you?"
Relieved in his anominity, King Konquerer turned to... enjoy his
meal.
Master Roster Man took a mouthful and nearly threw up. "What is
in here?"
"Oh, it's quite nice," said Fan.Boy. "At least, the original
sounded quite nice. I had to make a few changes 'cos we didn't have
everything we needed."
"Like?" asked Bladed Lad, fork poised at his mouth.
"Well, I couldn't find any avocados, but there was some lumpy
green things at the back of the fridge which looked pretty similar."
A few mouthfuls were ejected straight back out at this statement.
"And, I couldn't find any carrots," Fan.Boy continued. "Actually,
I think I did. They were orange, but, I have to admit, they were rather
furry."
"Didn't you find anything right?" asked Master Blaster, threateningly.
"The cheese was fine."
Ah. The cheese was fine.
"But, I had to leave the mould on, or there wouldn't have been
enough for the quiche."
There were several growling noises and general irritated silences.
Taking advantage of the pause, Fan.Boy ducked back into the
kitchen with a "Hang on. I'll just get the desert."
When he came out carrying a cake bigger than he was, everyone's
animosity was disarmed. Perhaps there was hope after all.
Webs Tor was first up for a piece, and watched with great
attention as Fan.Boy slowly inserted the knife.
Everyone's eyes followed the top of the cake as it sank towards
the bottom of the tin as the air escaped the pudding through the new hole.
Fan.Boy looked disappointedly at the result. "Erm, cake outsides
anyone?"
Large Caliber Man stood up. "What say we show our appreciation?"
he said, causing a large chain gun to appear in his hand.
"Right behind you on that one," said Spelling Boy, who was feeling
pumped up due to all the author's typoes.
"Er, guys," said Fan.Boy backing away. "Couldn't we talk about
this? Guys?"
He quickly assessed the state of the crowd, whispered a quick
thanks under his breath that he could survive death, and tried to make a
run for it.
Unfortunately for Fan.Boy, Lagneto stopped him from getting to far.
Fortunately for the rest of them, Lagneto stopped him from
getting too far.
----------------
Credits:
Everyone is copy-write their own authors. I used all sorts of people as
they hadn't been used recently and I thought that they might like to come
to a dinner. :)
Back to my BLiP page.