Some people like chili with beans, and others like it without.
Sure, you can make a pot of each, but there’s a more elegant one-pot solution.
When he wasn’t in the lab working on quantum physics, Erwin Schrödinger was in the kitchen, cooking for friends, family, and coworkers.
When he made chili, he ran into the same bean problem. Fussy eaters whining about beans or no beans.
So, just for them, he made a special pot of chili.
They didn’t know if it had beans until they got agonizing cramps.
“Serves you right!” he’d shout. “You’re fussier than my cat!”
Tag: food
The Judge
The judge put on his best robe, checked it in the mirror, and walked into the courtroom.
Streamers and balloons shouting HAPPY BIRTHDAY! were arranged around his bench and the jury box.
The courthouse’s best punchbowl was filled with what was supposed to be a simple red punch, but his bailiff was notorious for spiking it every year.
The bailiff’s wink confirmed it.
And then there was the cake… biggest, fanciest one he’d ever seen.
That’s when he realized… where was everybody else?
The guests? The partiers?
He shrugged, issued a flurry of bench warrants, and tried the punch.
Delicious!
Feed The Ducks
When I was young, my dad would take us to the ponds out by the Volkswagen offices. We’d feed the swans there.
These days, I’ll pick up a sandwich from the local Subway, eat the meat and vegetables out of it, and then walk to a small landscaped lake. The ducks and swans get the leftover bread.
Once, all the ducks and swans were gone. In their place were a set of wooden decoys, floating out on the lake.
What do decoys eat?
I quickly scribbled pictures of loaves of bread on my notepad and tossed them into the lake.
Bacon Feast
Ted finished his sixth plate of bacon, sucked his greasy lips, and moaned with delight.
“One more?” asked the waitress.
Ted gurgled “No, just the check.”
The waitress thanked him with a smile and left a vinyl folder on the table.
Ted took it, and it slid out of his hand.
He tried again, and it popped out of his hands and on to the floor.
So did his napkin.
“Help?”
The waitress slid him into the parking lot, where he was sprayed with soap and hosed down.
“Thank you,” said Ted, and he waddled away.
(Without paying the bill.)
Hit The Sauce
My friend Tony has been hitting the sauce pretty hard recently.
Hitting it hard enough to shatter the glass jars it comes in.
I wish he’d do it outside on the driveway so I can hose the sauce off into the gutter, but he does it in the kitchen and it splatters on the countertop and on the stove.
What a mess!
I told him that it comes in bags now. Those can take a beating.
“What, like cheap wine?” Tony growls. “So you think I should be getting cheap sauce, too?”
God, he’s so stupid. I need a drink.
Stone
Remember the story of Stone Soup?
A traveling beggar puts a big stone in a cauldron, adds well water, and hoodwinks the whole village into bringing vegetables and meat for a communal soup feast.
The beggar kept this scam going until one day, he woke up to find the cauldron missing.
He managed to scrape up cauldrons for the soup in the next few villages, but his luck ran out eventually.
“Okay, you don’t have a cauldron for soup,” he said. “We can make a big stone sandwich instead.”
Three cracked teeth later, angry villagers brained him with the stone.
Defending Soup
If you find yourself facing an opponent with nothing to defend yourself with but a can of soup:
Step one: Remove a sock
Step two: Place can of soup in sock
Step three: Swing sock at opponent
Step four: Repeat until your opponent surrenders or succumbs
If your opponent doesn’t surrender or succumb, you may be swinging the wrong end of the sock. Adjust your hold so the heavy soup-end is swinging.
Once your opponent surrenders or succumbs, you can celebrate your victory with a nice hot bowl of soup.
(Place sock on hand for dining companion, Socky The Sockpuppet.)
Eggplants
I was pushing a cart through the grocery store, gathering vegetables for a salad, when a mad scientist peered from behind a display and whispered “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, but can you make an omeletplant without breaking a few eggplants?”
I thought about it for a bit. “I don’t know.”
He implored me to follow him to the stockroom, where I beheld the largest mountain of eggplants I’d ever seen.
He grinned. “Shall we begin?”
We’ve been trying for ten years, but every time we try, the eggplant breaks.
We’ll keep trying. For science!
Fist Full Of Mustard
When you spend your whole life in the dark, it’s important to have a system.
I keep mustard packets in my left pants pocket, ketchup packets in my right pants pocket, relish packets in my jacket pocket, mayonnaise packets in this shirt pocket, salsa packets in-
No. Really. Ask me for something.
Mustard? Right here.
Ask me again.
Ketchup? Right here.
See?
Well, okay, you can’t see, because we’re in the closet and the light’s off and it’s dark, but still, I’m ready.
Now I’m ready for anything! Let’s go out there and…
Um… hold on…
Who locked the door?
When it rains…
Mother used to say “When it rains, it pours.”
I’d walk out to the patio and say “Mom? That’s just Grampa on the roof with the hose.”
Mother never said much about that. It was bad enough that Grampa lived with us, making a scene at every meal, accusing Germans of poisoning his soup…
“That’s meat loaf, Grampa, not soup.”
“DAMN THE KAISER!” he’d shout, diving under the table.
The stories he’d tell me, well, they were magical. Tales of… well… I mean… magical stories…
Okay, fine. I ignored the crazy old coot.
Pass the meat loaf… I mean soup.