IRON MAIDEN CHEF

Yes, I am insane. The phrase 'the devil's Szechuan' was invented last night. DB, myself and John D, among others, have found musical uses for it. This morning while I was going to the beach, a vision overcame me. Thus:

IRON MAIDEN CHEF

The stadium is shown, with the color schemes being dedicated to red and black. Near the main podium where some of the audience are usually located is a setup for a band, apparently led by a bass player, though it?s hard to tell in the murky light. The remaining audience section consists, unusually, of various demonic shapes. All however are applauding as KAGA appears in a puff of smoke and the slight smell of sulfur. He is looking even more dashing than ever, though the red sequins are a bit odd, as is the glint in his eyes.

KAGA: Welcome to the Kitchen Inferno. If memory serves me correctly, Bobby Flay has never been properly punished for his insolence and general existence. Tonight, he faces the only appropriate action.

The curtains open and FLAY is hustled through to the Inferno floor by two burly red-skinned dudes who look like Hellboy but, you know, with horns. They fling him to the floor.

FLAY: Hey, why I am here? I was just making one of my trademark Southwestern dishes of eight million clashing spices and one or two refried beans ?

KAGA: That does not concern you now! You are returned to a proper place of judgment. I would invite you to pick your competition, but in fact there is only one Iron Chef tonight!

SATAN rises from the floor in a swirl of dry ice and doomy chords from the band. He is already dressed for the occasion with a red chef?s hat and apron, the latter of which reads ?Kiss the Goat.? SATAN and FLAY stand below KAGA.

KAGA: Tonight the cuisine expected of you both is Chinese, and the ingredient is of the rarest quality, using peppercorns harvested by monkeys from the side of an inaccessible mountain, aged for 200 years in a salt mine, then mixed with soy sauce that dates back to the beginning of the universe. It costs $4 billion per tablespoon. We unveil the ingredient!

To further doomy chords, bottles filled with a dark liquid arise from the expected section of the podium. SATAN smiles, FLAY looks confused.

KAGA: Your ingredient is Szechuan sauce!

The band begins to play:

I cooked alone, my mind was blank
I needed time to get the recipes from my mind

What did I eat? Can I believe? That what I tasted
that night was real and not just fantasy

Just what I braised with my fresh breams?
Were they reflections of my crap oven staring back at me?

Cos in my fridge it's always there
The evil sauce that twists my mind
and brings me to despair

The night was black was no use holding back
Cos I just had to see was someone cooking meat?
In the mist dark skewers move and twist
was all this for real or some kind of hell

SZECHUAN SAUCE Condiment of the Beast
Hell and fire was aged to be released

SATAN and FLAY select their portions.

KAGA: Your assistants are waiting. Satan?s are his most evolved demonic cooks. Flay?s, yours are your compatriots.

FLAY: My??

In a puff of smoke, the FOOD NETWORK HOSTS appear and start arguing.

EMERIL: I say we kick it up a notch!

ALTON: If I could just do a wacky sketch here?

GORDON: The elegance!

The squabbling continues. SATAN and his minions prepare elegant dishes. FUKUI and HATTORI watch with their guests, GENERIC ACTRESS and MOMUS.

FUKUI: Well it should be a fine match this time, though it seems Flay is perhaps a bit overmatched.

HATTORI: Yes, it will take a highly coordinated effort.

FUKUI: Anyway, let?s meet our guests. Generic Actress, how are you?

GENERIC ACTRESS: I?m fine! I feel like I?m in the clouds!

FUKUI: And you Momus?

MOMUS: In contemplating the relation of modern architecture and the realization of the existence of the devil in terms of cooking hairstyles, I believe that I will find just the right pun to describe this situation as part of a prog-electro epic which I am --

OHTA: FUKUI-SAN!

FUKUI: Go, Ohta!

OHTA: Satan has already created ten different dishes ranging from a Peking duck glazed with a light lemon reduction to a fried rice dish that uses the slightest hint of the sauce! Flay is chasing after Alton Brown with a knife.

SATAN and his minions begin to sing, accompanied by the band:

I close my eyes, and think of food,
Another kitchen goes by, in the night,
Ain't it funny how it is, you never miss sauce til it's gone away,
And my dish is lying there and will be til my dying day.

So understand
Don't waste your time misplacing all that Szechuan sauce,
Eat up...make your stand,
And realise you're cooking with the devil?s sauce.

FLAY proceeds to beat EMERIL with spoons as the chaos on his side grows to an unbearable level, appearing to an outside observer like a Three Stooges routine without the subtlety or appeal.

TIME VOICE: Thirty minutes

FUKUI: It has to be said that this does not look promising.

OHTA: Flay-san, are you not running behind?

FLAY: I?m trying! But I have to admit I?m concerned.

OHTA: Because?

Band starts up, FLAY steps forward to the sound of a fragile guitar:

I am a man who cooks alone
And when I'm cooking a bad dish
At night with something Szechuan

When the meat begins to change
I sometimes feel a little strange
A little anxious when it's Szechuan

Fear of Szechuan, fear of Szechuan
I have constant fear that the devil?s
always near
Fear of Szechuan, fear of Szechuan
I have a phobia that the devil?s
always there

FLAY: But I?ll keep trying! I have to!

GENERIC ACTRESS: Ha ha ha ha.

MOMUS: I might suggest this one website?

EMERIL: You?ve got to kick up a notch! You?ve got say ?bam? as well!

FLAY: Dammit will you leave me alone!

EMERIL: Never! Always more! But I admit the last time I challenged Satan it went badly.

Band begins as EMERIL sings:

Give me the sauce to wonder
To see if I can cook free
Give me a sauce of wonder
To know I can be me
Give me the heat to fry my rice up
Blend egg with their taste
Don't need no salt to flavor this dish
Gonna say ?BAM? a lot
Kick up notches as I baste

Can I cook with Szechuan - the devil stared at his crystal ball
Can I cook with Szechuan - there's no dishes there at all
Can I cook with Szechuan - the devil looked and he laughed that day
Can I cook with Szechuan - he said ?you suck too, just like Flay!?

HATTORI: That strikes me as an admission of weakness.

GENERIC ACTRESS: Ha ha ha ha. Ha.

TIME VOICE: Five minutes.

The cooking continues more quickly now, as SATAN finishes up a hundred course meal that is indescribably lush.

FLAY: I?ll concentrate on simplicity! Something basic, and I KNOW I will win!

FLAY creates something extremely vile, causing most of his assistants to faint or retch.

FLAY: Brilliant!

FLAY climbs onto his cooking board. OHTA suddenly seems ill.

OHTA: FUKUI-SAN!

FUKUI: Go, Ohta!

OHTA: I cannot stand this?I?NOOOOOO!

OHTA transforms, with a weird grinding fleshy noise, into a nine feet tall skeletal figure with a cadaverous mein and glowing red eyes. He does not seem particularly pleased with FLAY, grabbing a long kitchen knife and hewing FLAY?s legs out from under him. As FLAY hobbles away in fright on his knee-stubs, the transformed OHTA sings:

You stand on boards and it?s death for you
You use that sauce and I'll run you through
So when you're waiting for the devil?s attack
You'd better stand there's no turning back.

Kaga speaks and the match begins
But in this battle-sauce you won?t win
The smell of greasy smoke and Alton?s breath
As you plunge on into certain death.

OHTA continues his pursuit while SATAN adds the finishing touches and EMERIL and GORDON pointlessly argue about butter knives.

FUKUI: Truly a memorable battle today.

GENERIC ACTRESS: Yes, ha ha ha ha.

TIME VOICE: Five, four, three, two, one.

OHTA (still transformed): My dark lord, ruler of the universe, how did you think you did?

SATAN: The power of my sauce will be demonstrated to all, I am confident.

OHTA (holding up FLAY like a speck and shaking him): AND YOU?

FLAY (meekly): Well, uh, I tried.

FUKUI describes all hundred of SATAN?s courses in exquisite detail, it is a feast beyond comparison to all that have ever been cooked. FLAY?s dish is watery tofu soaked in sauce.

The judgment table is set up. GENERIC ACTRESS, MOMUS and KISHI ASAKO are the judges.

FLAY: Ouch, my knees sorta hurt now. The dish!

The tofu is served out.

GENERIC ACTRESS: It tastes like air! But everything tastes like air to me.

MOMUS: If this were deep fried and served among my former compatriots in my country of birth this might still be seen as inadequate, and quite possibly something created and cooked by Bush.

KISHI (contemptuously): Flay, why do you exist?

SATAN?s dishes are served next. The meal takes an entire week and the judges have nothing to say at the end of it, they are that content.

Back in the Kitchen Inferno, the results are announced ? SATAN has all the points, FLAY none. The applause is thunderous.

SATAN: Thank you. Now may I claim Flay properly?

KAGA: By all means.

SATAN opens up a fiery pit below FLAY?s feet, causing him to collapse and land on a pile of rancid McDonald?s hamburgers and Del Taco beans, served on a massive loaf of the whitest of white bread.

KAGA: Most excellent. Now, the encore please.

JOHN D appears, takes a bow, and begins to sing:

the best ever death metal chef out of Kyoto
was a friendly guy who?d been cooking since grade school.
His name was Ichiro, sometimes called Jeff.
and he practiced every day in his mom?s kitchen.

the best ever death metal chef out of Kyoto
never had a signature dish.
but the top three contenders, after weeks of testing,
were Satan's sushi, and Kobe beef, and the tofu spice bombs.

Ichiro always believed in his heart he was headed
for Iron Chef and Lear jets and fortune and fame.
so in script he made prominent use of a pentagram,
he stenciled his knives, spoons and chopsticks with his name.

this was how Ichiro was mocked by his school
where they told him he'd never be famous.
and this was why Ichiro,
in the letters he'd write to his friends,
helped develop recipes to get even.

when you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don't expect him to thank or forgive you.
the best ever death metal chef out of Kyoto
will in time both outpace and outlive you.

hail szechuan!
hail szechuan tonight!
hail szechuan!
hail hail!

JOHN D is borne off in triumph by the band, and the resultant publicity results in JOHN D selling 50 million albums, the new worldwide tour ?Goatfest,? and the chance for him to say ?SCREAM FOR ME LOS ANGELES!? in front of sellout crowds at the Rose Bowl for seven nights straight.

(Apologies to everyone. Except Flay. Anyway, now I'm going to go have some brunch.)