Dinner roll dedication
Are You Hungry to Become a Top Writer?
Eat this.
This world is full of glamorous titles.
El Presidente.
The Duke of p̶e̶e̶d̶o̶York.
‘Top writer in food’ is not often thrown around in the same discussion, but maybe it should be. After all, without food we are nothing but an emaciated expiration date. At least food prolongs the suffering a little longer. And reading about it is the next best thing to eating it.
I recently opened my inbox, and after buying my monthly prescriptions at a surprisingly discounted price and investing in the Nigerian short-term loan market, I stumbled across an email from my old pen pal T-Stubbs the third. TS3 (or medium, as others know him) informed me my recent ramblings were ‘POPULAR with readers,’ and to ‘keep up the good work.’
Thanks champ, I began to reply, until I noticed more words written above the ones I had already read. Just as it had my entire life, my craving for popularity had left me blinded to the truth and meaning that skirted its peripheries.
‘Patrick Eades,’ TS3 said (yet to come up with a catchy friend nickname for me, but he’ll get there), ‘You’re a top writer in the topic of food.’
Well shit, I thought. I didn’t know I even wrote about food. TS3 went on to tell me which of my stories were the backbones of my success, and a few other kind words about my contribution to the worlds of literature and gastronomy.
My first thought was how I can humorously word this into my bio. My second thought was to fix myself a snack. A few more thoughts later, I realised the time has come for me to give back.
Just like when Mozart taught local buskers how to select the appropriate drum rhythm on their keyboards to accompany Sonata no. 11. Or Brad Pitt teaching community theatre students how he perfected his ‘sexy eating’ face for their upcoming production of Oceans 11 the musical. Now was the time for me to teach my fellow writers the secrets to becoming a top writer in food.
Step 1. Gather your ingredients
Make sure your creative space has all the essentials.
Notebook/laptop.
Pens/fingers.
Desk/the kyphotic spine of your 90 year old grandfather on all fours.
A lightbulb for holding up at appropriate moments.
Step 2. Choose your recipe
Some like to choose the recipe before gathering ingredients, but I feel this stifles creativity. That’s why I put it at step 2. We need to work with what we’ve got.
The most popular recipes I’ve found seem to target vegans. Let’s face it, they’re an easy target. How could you possibly mess up ‘vegans are annoying and humourless,’ or ‘go eat a steak you self righteous salad sucker.’
But every great recipe needs balance. To demonstrate your mastery of food writing, flip the recipe on its head. Take the piss out of vegans while ALSO SUBLIMINALLY PUSHING VEGAN WORLD DOMINATION. ( ̶V̶e̶g̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶̶̶d̶i̶t̶o̶r̶:̶ ̶M̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶y̶̶̶̶̶̶̶b̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶n̶̶̶̶̶̶̶’̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶p̶̶̶̶̶̶̶u̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶h̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶b̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶̶̶̶̶̶̶n̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶b̶̶̶̶̶̶̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶l̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶?̶̶̶̶̶̶̶Carnivorous editor: Fuck you salad sucker)
The algorithm loves a power struggle.
Step 3. Cook up your masterpiece.
Begin by combining half a cup of absurdity with two tablespoons of profanity, and blend for 30 seconds until it reaches the consistency of beer spew with occasional chunks of wisdom.
Mix a dash of political anger, a pinch of unfettered self loathing and half a gallon of toilet water in a rusty hubcap and bring to a boil.
Add the previously blended ingredients. Be careful it doesn’t froth over into a steaming rant.
Leave the mixture to congeal, and refrigerate overnight.
Take it out the next day and run your fingers through it. Don’t touch your eyes; you’re probably already crying.
Shred the whole thing with your bands and scatter it across the kitchen floor.
Return in a few hours, scrape up the detritus and attempt to mould it into 750 words and 2–3 pictures with smartarse captions.
Slap a fishy looking title on top and voila’s ya aunty.
Rinse and repeat until you reach medium top writer status or die a lonely death in a log cabin with a typewriter that freezes up in winter and a friendly bear called Boris who tickled your neck whenever doubts began to creep into your bones but now has the practicality to consume your corpse because it tastes better than anything you produced while alive.
Step 4. Provide an astrology dinner mint or similarly hopeful mignardise
Nothing too bleak now, you want happy associations with your handiwork.
Too bleak.
Whoa, could this get any bleaker? (Yes. Stay tuned for batch number 3)
And if none of that works?
Just tag a bunch of writers who are better looking and more talented than yourself and hope to cling tight onto their coattails.
Uvebruce wrote a far superior piss take of vegans. And he’s not even a vegan! He hates them!
Karen L. Sullivan is a legit top writer in cooking but is so carnivorous she counts moose as a vegetable. Her recipes are deadly.
Ginger Cook. I mean, it sounds like she should know what she’s doing in the kitchen, right? She’s like some culinary Jesus and can turn music into food, apparently.
Annie Trevaskis enjoys whipping up modern spins on traditional English recipes like spotted horse.
Smillew Rahcuef is a beast on the BBQ and loves an old sausage.
Ann James left abruptly for her holiday and forgot to pack away the dinner roll she slaved over for years. It is now slowly decomposing.
Please come back.