Kitchen Con Carnage

Don' know about you, but I get some of the funniest things in email. They're even funnier when a 'worst case' scenario is avoided.

As you've read herein, I am a culinary clusterf*** in the kitchen, bar none. I am the one and only Chef Boy-R-Deestructive: I've killed my share of curds, and in more wheys than most could believe possible.

*ducking boos and throwd kitchen implements*

Personally, I don't see it as a curse; I see it as a gift. One I give sparingly, and only to those who really cross me, but I digress.

At any rate, one might imagine my high level of amusement, when I received the following email from the Scottsdale Culinary Institute:

A career in a growing industry can be your best move in times of economic uncertainty. Our Le Cordon Bleu program at Scottsdale Culinary Institute can help you start a whole new career as an Executive Chef. Earn an Associate Degree in as little as 15 months. Whether it's classical French or modern techniques, the professional chefs at SCI can help you learn with expert, hands-on training in supportive classes.

We offer job placement assistance services and financial aid is available for those who qualify. You'll enjoy SCI's sunny, outdoor lifestyle in the popular resort destination of Scottsdale, Arizona. For the right training and the right experience in the right career, you need the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. Contact us for more information.

*bwhahahaha...yer killin' me h'yar...stop it, stop it...*

It would have been so simple to just hit *delete*. But before I could, that "get me in trouble" *TOING* echoed in the vast void between my ears. So I clicked on the link and filled out their application, with tongue buried firmly in cheek. And just in case they didn't catch that's where my tongue was firmly rooted, in the final Comments section, I let them off the hook by writing thus:

Ladies, gentlemen, Wolfgang and Pucks all: I am most gratified that you would choose me for this opportunity. However, I suspect that your spam email program -- see what I just did there? -- has thrown you a faux cordon kaBleu-ee, by contacting yours truly. I am the WMD of the Western Campfire. I am the antipasto of the kitchenary Holy Grail. Smoke alarms burn out in my presence. But it's not too late...you can put down this application, slowly back away, genuflecting with a spatula and crossed bacon tongs. Do NOT allow the culinary equivalent of Pearl Harbor to launch a surprise attack on your pristine destination resort facilities. This has been my official, "Last Chance For Humanity before the Artichoke Apocalypse" disclaimer.

I reckoned that'd take care of things. *Buzzer*

Over the next five days, I received two follow-up emails and two voice messages on my phone (the only implement in my kitchen that I can't use to create a dietary E.L.E.*), urging me to expedite my application process.

Not only did they apparently not read my comments; it was terrwubwy obvious that they don' know me vewy well, either. Maybe I should have sent them my boboli punkin pie con carnage column, instead?

So before they could dispatch a squad of Swedish chefs from The Muppet Show to collect me, I responded to their last, insistent-I-reply email:

Chefs and Chefettes,

First, kudos to your persistence. Second, two thumbs down to your application screeners, who may actually work for a competing culinary school. You might want to look into that after we finish here.

As I said in the original application, I am, quite probably, the anti-chef of cookbook prophecy. I am a culinary tsunami. An F-5 spagetti tornado. The EPA considers me a potential source of domestic WMD. A starving dog won't eat my scraps. Ground beef will reconstitute into a cow, stampeding at my approach. Frozen poultry will fly to get away. I burn water. To a crisp. But not before the Iron Chef rusts at the sweat he breaks out into, at the mere rumor of my approach.

I replied to your application because I initially considered it a prank from my professional chef nephew, who knows well my contraproclivities in the kitchenary environment. I am many things -- including deadly with a salad shooter and unspeakable with a juicer -- but one thing I'm not is a serious applicant for your establishment.

I don't want to be the last class you'll ever be able to have.

My esteemed and sauteed sirs/ma'ams, I am not a serious applicant. Your facility is not me-rated for disaster recovery. It is a crime for me to hold so much as a spatula.

Besides...if I went on to somehow beat odds even Vegas won't take, my local Chinese delivery folks would be forced onto egg foo yung stamps, if I went south to wreak con carnage on your facility.

Again, it's not too late: you can forget you ever saw my application, back away slowly, and leave the disposal of this toxic application to the folks at HAZAPP. Save your kitchens for future culinarians. Heck, Rachel Ray and/or the French might even name a tart for you.

Ciao (no pun intended...well okay, so it was).

And it appears to have worked: the emails and phone messages from SCI have stopped. The world has been made safe from cordon kableu-ee.

* Extinction Level Event