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.