December 3
Spoke with Justain today about my KawCajun cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten real BobbyQ, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for BBQ’ed Baby Back Ribs.
December 4
Still working on the Baby Back Ribs. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating slabs of ribs one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create some BobbyQ that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead it taste like bad meatloaf. I look at the ribs on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Boudreaux suggested paprika.
December 6
I have realized that the traditional slab of PORK spare ribs is bourgeois. Today I tried making BBQ out of a Camel cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Boudreaux.....who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.
December 7
Today I agian modified my BobbyQ’ed Baby Back recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only illness to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie, I taped two pork chops over my eyes and walked the streets of Kansas City for an hour. I ran into Justain at the bowling alley. He called me a "pathetic dork" and told me to "go home and wash my face." Angered, I poured a bowl of gumbo into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw.... propelleing the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You dick!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled blindly into the night.
December 10
I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional BBQ dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:
BobbyQ’ed Pheasant Casserole
Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish
Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light. While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a BobbyQ’ed Pheasant casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustated.
December 12
My eye has become inflamed. I hate Justain.
December 23
I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single BBQ recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for a bottle of catsup, half a cup of vinegar, four tons of beef brisket, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.
January 1
I feel that I may be very close to a great breakthrough. I had been creating meal after meal, but none seemed to express the futility of existence any better than would ordering an anchovy pizza. I left the house this morning in a most depressed state, and wandered aimlessly through the streets once more. Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened. My brain was electrified with an influx of new ideas. "Beef brisket, dry rub, hickory wood...." I muttered aloud. I realized with a start that I was one ingredient away from creating the nutritious *secret of life* meal. Loathsome, true, but filled with existential authenticity. I rushed home to begin work anew.
January 2
Today I tried yet another variation: Brisket, dry rub, hickory wood and Chee-tos. Again, a dismal failure. I have tried everything. Brisket, dry rub, hickory wood and whiskey. Brisket, dry rub, hickory wood and chicken fat. Brisket, dry rub, hickory wood and someone else's spit. Nothing helps. I am in agony. Brisket, dry rub, hickory wood.....they race about my fevered brain like fire, like an unholy trinity of cruel denial. And the fourth ingredient! What could it be? It eludes me like the lost chord, the Holy Grail. I must see the completion of my task, but I have no more money to spend on food. Perhaps man is not meant to know...........
January 3
Justain came into the restaurant today. He did not know I was in the kitchen, and before I sent out his meal I loogied in his soup. Sic semper tyrannis.
January 4
Ran into some opposition at the restaurant. Some of the patrons complained that my breakfast special (a page out of Remembrance of Things Past and a blowtorch with which to set it on fire) did not satisfy their hunger. As if their hunger was of any consequence! "But we're starving," they say. So what? They're going to die eventually anyway. They make me want to puke. I have quit the job. It is stupid for ChezJawn-Paul Sartre to sling hash. I have enough money to continue my work for a little while.
January 5
Last night I had a dream. In it, I am standing, alone, knee-deep in BBQ Sauce. A great and violent storm is raging all about me. It begins to rain garlic cloves and jalapenos. Night falls. I am struck by how small and insignificant I am, how the entire race of Man is but a speck in the eye of God, and I am but a speck of humanity. Suddenly, a red Cadillac convertible pulls up beside me. In it are these two beautiful girls named Jojo and Wendy. I get in and they take me to their mansion in Hollywood and give me a pound of cocaine, a bottle of BBQ SAUCE.....and make mad, passionate love to me for the rest of my life.
January 6
Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries, a bottle of BBQ SAUCE, and a live beaver....challenging the very definition of the word "cake." I was very pleased. Boudreaux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off....or...the Memphis In May BBQ competition, whichever comes first.
January 12
Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Betty Crocker on the wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling hickory trees in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the tender limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I only got third place. Moreover, I am now the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit. January 12th, and I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months, and I am now experiencing BBQ withdrawal. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less.
From now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee....while I continue my search for the Holy Grail.....the *secret of life*.....the Ultimate BobbyQ!!!!!!!!!!!!
