Burn, Baby, Burn

Apparently, when the Savage Chef (with or without her beloved consort Grumpy) goes out to dine, red lights flash and sirens blare in the kitchens of our local vomitoriums. "Drain the fresh oil out of the fryer and dump in that stuff that was sitting in a barrel in the back room when the boss bought the place"(in 1946), they say.

For two days in a row, your Savage Chef has suffered from dyspepsia. First it was the lumpia. Fried black and handed to her in an oil-soaked paper bag, urp--oh, it was not pretty. Still, she tried. Oh, how she tried. She valiantly ate her way through nearly half of the cat-turd-like cylinders before she collapsed, whimpering and convulsing, grease leaking from her mouth and nose and congealing in small, smelly puddles 'neath her writhing limbs.

This morning, she and King Grumpy decided to avail themselves of the hearty cuisine of the local chain ristorante. After a half hour or so, their food arrived. Apparently the cook was channeling Paul Prudhomme during one of his early acid trips. Have you ever eaten a blackened crab cake? No? Well neither had the Savage Chef. She did her best imitation of a sickened cat, pawing at the table in a symbolic attempt to cover the filthy thing.

The meal was comped, but the Savage Chef was left hungry. Grumpy was able to eat his French Dip, but he was made even more grumpy by the sight of his lady left lightheaded and weak. He was so guilty (though it was clearly not his fault) that he completed several home repair projects that he had been putting off. So there is indeed a silver lining inside of every little black cloud, isn't there?