Chet's Cheap Grub Grill --Food Frivolity and Adventure Stories

Happy Campers Eating Phuff-Phuff

Birth of the Recipe:

I had made my way north from San Francisco to the timber country of Oregon. It was an uneventful trip and my accommodations aboard an empty Union Pacific railcar were most comfortable. I jumped track around the headwaters of the Coos River and finding myself low on funds decided to seek employment with one of the local lumber

companies. In no time at all I had graduated from clearing brush piles to the job of a cutter. The sight of fifty foot logs careening down the sluice into the Coos River was breathtaking. The air was clean, the company robust. But the food...well now that's where this tale begins. We were living on boiled otter meat and rock hard biscuits, all washed down by thick coffee and cheap whiskey. One evening a general malaise overtook the entire camp. The company of hearty, pink cheeked lumberjacks lolled about in their bunks complaining of back pain and stomach cramps. An old Chinese man astride an Army mule suddenly appeared, riding into camp. He was dressed like some kind of far-eastern shaman except for the tattered but obviously expensive herringbone jacket he wore. He looked a little like Tony Randall in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. The Chinaman untied a large gunny from the saddle and without a word made his way to our camp kitchen whereupon he started slicing and chopping whatever it was he carried in the sack. Minutes later the old man had filled buckets full of his mysterious concoction. He declared in broken English, "you eat now...make better phuff phuff." The next morning the lumberjacks were making a sluice of their own. The bowel log jam had been broken.

Phuff Phuff Salad:

Ingrediments:

Red cabbage, green onion, bean sprouts (those long ones with the little whiskers on the end) bell pepper, Paul Newmans Family Italian Dressing, Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Utenseels: Sharp knife for dicing and slicing, bowl to eat out of, skillet for the hot version, wooden spoon, one pair of opera glasses (optional)

Let's Cook!

Cut hunks off the cabbage head vertically with the stem down. Julianne about two cups

Dice up the Vitamin O, sprouts, pepper and celery...one cup each

Hot Version: Heat the olive oil. Saute the cabbage and pepper, add the celery and sprouts... sauteing with the cabbage. Give the skillet a couple of wrist flips...add the green O... cover for a few minutes, spoon into eating bowl and drench with Newmans. Prepare throne room with good reading material.

Chuck Heston Pulls a Sissy Move

Did you ever see the original Planet of the Apes? How about the part where the spaceship crashed into Lake Powell and the astronauts were abandoning ship. Did you happen to notice how he-man Charlton Heston holds his nose just as jumps into the water? What a sissy move. I guess you have to give Charl credit for doing his own stunts.

This Just In:

Flash notes from Discover Magazine

Researchers at a Milan, Italy hospital discovered that "people who eat lots of pizza are less than half as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who nibble occasionally." Chet says that maybe the study groups were 12 year old soccer players and old Milanese bums that get their pizza out of the dumpster.

Spinach Fights the Flu: Molecular biologists in Philadelphia are experimenting with making vaccines for anthrax, influenza and the plague. The ingrediments being used? Spinach, Swiss Chard and petunias. Chet says " Yea, but what color petunias?"

Next post: Chet...Assassin -- wherein Chet hunts down an African Warlord

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posted by Cranky Old Doods  # 11:43 AM