Disaster Chef

I’m thinking about starting up my own new reality TV show. It will be called ‘Disaster Chef’.

Rather than having would-be chef contestants and a bunch of ‘expert’ judges, my show will feature me as the main contestant and some of the people I have attempted to poison over the years with my cooking as the judges/jurors.

So where did this idea come from? Well, there I was in the kitchen the other day, trying to make something yummy - yet sugarfree - (yes, I know that sounds like something of an oxymoron, but bear with me) for my houseguests.

You see, I was dumping sugar as part of my latest sugar-free diet campaign, to which everyone else in the household (or who will listen) is being forced to subscribe – whether they want to or not. When I get on a bandwagon, I become almost evangelical in my devoutness - meaning I am currently the Jimmy Swaggart of Anti-Sugarism. (Although minus his millions and his orange-skinned wife, of course).

But before the culinary ‘creation’ could start, I had to scour the town in search of some ‘dextrose’ powder, a form of glucose which, according to my Bible…. I mean the sugar-free diet book, is ‘allowed’ as a replacement for the dreaded white stuff.

This proved to be quite a challenge but, eventually, in the home brew section of my supermarket, I found a Dextrose/Maltodextrose compound which I decided would suffice and rushed hastily home to my laboratory…I mean kitchen…to get cracking on my sugar-free cheesecake.

All was going well.

I’d managed to make the ‘base’ and started on the filling. Along with mixing cream cheese, lemon, dextrose and lemon rind, this part of the recipe required that I ‘heat two tablespoons of water’ and then add three teaspoons of gelatine, stir til dissolved then remove to cool.

A little voice suggested that, once cooled, this little concoction would be the consistency of rubber, but I dismissed it. Surely the recipe knew more about these things than I, so I just did what I was told. Perhaps it will dissolve when mixed with the filling? I thought hopefully.

The filling looked yummy and I was feeling very confident that I had a success on my hands (a rare feeling for me, I admit). Of course, my confidence was grossly misplaced for, as you will have guessed by now, once I plonked my little lump of rubber in the mixmaster bowl I realised (to my horror!) that the rubber was now being chopped into a million rubbery little pieces which were now permeating the entire bowl of filling!

But never one to give up easily, I grabbed the bowl and starting diving in with my fingers to retrieve as many lumps as I could get. I then mixed some more gelatine and water, plonked it in the mix, noticed it was now too sloppy, added another block of cream cheese and some more of my new friend, dextrose, and hoped for the best.

To overcome the fact that there were still a million small lumps of gelatine in the mix, I cunningly chopped up a few strawberries and threw them in so no one would notice the other lumps.

It was a master stroke, and I’m happy to report that the cheesecake was eaten with gusto (apart from the fact that the base was the consistency of week old cement and I think a few fillings and/or teeth were lost).

Anyway, hence my idea to start my own television series. After all, I am more than qualified as a Disaster Chef extraodinnaire. And my kids have even offered to be the Judges.

(I just hope they ain’t ‘hanging judges’ or I’m a gonner for sure!)