#TragicDinnersOfanEnglishman

Dee Why, 17.04.2018

My palms were sweaty. My heartbeat racing. Nausea hit me like waves throughout the day. Why? Today was the day...James was cooking!

I walked in to find him peeling mushrooms. “What are you doing?!”
“I’m peeling the mushrooms to get the dirt off them! It’s taken me about 20 minutes!”
After crying with laughter, I decided to chip in and help him out, after all, he was making an effort and he would have an excellent hygiene rating.

“What’s next?” I asked eyeing up the strange mixture of ingredients before me.
Pesto, Bolognese sauce, bacon, pasta, cauliflower and onions. Thick chunks of onion were already cooking away on the hob while a pot of pasta was being boiled.
“So I was thinking, should we have the pesto and bolognese together to add more flavour?”
“Definitely not!” The dish was strange enough!
He plonked two slices of bacon on top of the onions in the pan.
“Did you maybe want to chop those up first?” I asked feeling

more amused.
“No they’ll cook too quickly and the cauliflower won’t be ready!” I decided to stifle my laugh, I didn’t want him to lose confidence and onions and bacon were the first normal pairing of ingredients he had so far. I took the spatula and prodded the onions and bacon while James grated the cheese.
“Oh no!” He yelled, “I forgot about the cauliflower !” I watched as he chucked handfuls of florets into the pot with the pasta. Soon, it was ready.
Cauliflower pasta with Bolognese sauce, bacon, onions and mushrooms lying on a bed of grated cheese.

We headed to the living room to watch TV as I crunched the onions noisily. Most of the sauce had been soaked up by the mountain of pasta and cauliflower but if I dug my fork deep enough I could find hints of cheese lying beneath.

He eyed me suspiciously.
“Mmm...!” I looked at him reassuringly. Followed up with a thumb up!
“You hate it don’t you?”
“No!” I lied. “It tastes like... all the ingredients!” An awkward silence hung in the room and I had to avert my eye contact to stifle further laughter.

The important thing is that neither of us died from food poisoning...or from the fire that was about to start due to James leaving the gas on!

#Factor50

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