INGREDIENTS
1 Noh mask
1.5 gallons rooibos tea
7 specimens dried coral
1 pair caribou antlers
All tagged the deep kitchen
FIRST COURSE
paris-style tobacco gnocchi
wrapped in pan-seared dollar bills, glazed with jalapeño jam
The leather-bound cookbook contains three-hundred seventy-seven recipes, including instructions for preparing alligator skin, thickening petroleum into flan, and slow-cooking ingots of iron until they’re tender enough to swallow. Before all of this, however, the text begins with a set of initiatory instructions, required for the chef to “survive their own work.” These instructions are as follows:
appetizers
twice-baked eel skins with gruyere - $12
braised trilobite on soft seaweed crisps - $16
nudibranch tempura with lobster honey - $18
During the early 1990s, single-use magic wands began appearing in dollar stores throughout America. For the most part, these were simply hollow, black tubes of polystyrene filled with a light dusting of powdered aether. Each contained just enough mystical potency to help with a single household task, whether that be washing the dishes, grilling burgers, or cleaning stains from the carpet. No incantations or prior initiation were required; after a few seconds of vigorous shaking, the wand’s plastic tip would pop off, allowing the pressurized magic to escape as a jet of violet smoke.
During the first phase of manufacturing, jellybeans are perfectly transparent. In this preliminary state, they look like misplaced contact lenses, or raindrops that failed to burst on impact. These beans have no flavor of their own, yet contain the potential for all flavors; when bitten, there is only that familiar texture of a tender shell giving way, followed by that of semi-molten starch oozing apart.
STARTERS
$7.99 BEER-BATTERED INSECT MEDLEY - A mixture of hornets, fireflies, and grasshoppers, deep-fried in our signature pilsner batter, then glazed with charcoal salsa. Don’t forget to spit out the stingers.
$4.99 WEST TEXAS POPCORN - Cooked over an open flame the old-fashioned way, then tossed in thistle butter, dusted with rock salt, and finished with a drizzle of cactus blood.
$9.99 HUMMINGBIRD SKEWERS - Grilled whole on shish kebabs with peach slices, brussel sprouts, and artichoke hearts. Painted with a glaze of local petroleum, served burning.
Jellied piano keys. raspberry jam, sesame seed. $9. - black keys only - $3.
Deep-fried dragonflies. tempura batter, quicksilver crema, mirror honey. $11.
Tree frog poppers. whole poison dart frogs, tempura batter, unstable habanero isotopes. $11.
Long pork sliders. pickled radish, black onion, hemlock vinaigrette. $10.