A Review Of My Last Drunken Meals
Originally published on PostGradProblems.com
Thanks for tuning in to Drunken Chef, America’s premier after-hours cooking show. This week, we will be judging the culinary creations of Chef Paoletti as he stumbles into his kitchen at 2:30 a.m. It’s been a very productive couple of weeks for Noam, and he’s really started to push the envelope with what he’s willing to put into his body whilst in a zombified state. Without further ado, let’s break down the dishes he’s somehow managed to prepare after a normal person would have simply ordered pizza and passed out.
Chocolate Milk Cereal
What was supposed to be a relaxing Wednesday night really went awry for Noam as his team chose to celebrate the end of a difficult project with an impromptu happy hour. Due to the unexpected nature of this inebriated evening, he has arrived home to an almost totally bare kitchen and is in full forage mode. It appears as though he’s found a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but what will he do with it? Look at him rummaging through the fridge; he’s clearly got something on his mind. Ah yes, he’s grabbed a jug of his roommate’s milk, and made himself a nice little bowl of cereal here. But while most chefs would be satisfied with this result from such a poorly stocked kitchen, Noam isn’t done. In a flash of true brilliance he’s found an old bottle of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, and squeezed a well over eight-second pour into his cereal. Truly impressive stuff from an untested chef.
Verdict: The taste of the chocolate milk completely overpowers the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but is delicious nonetheless.
Cold BBQ Chicken Tacos
This dish is… interesting, to say the least. It appears the secret ingredient of the night was tequila, and in a bold move, the chef has elected to marinate his own brain in it and not use any in his cooking. While at first we thought we would see a forfeit, Noam managed to rally from his prone position on the couch and pull together something quite complicated here. Using a Tupperware container of BBQ-sauce-marinated chicken (a real crowd pleaser from earlier this week), he’s managed to create a somewhat passable taco. Due to the fact that this man-child still has yet to buy a microwave for his new apartment, this dish loses major points as it is being served freezing cold. The BBQ sauce also contrasts quite abrasively with the salsa and sour cream that was quite unnecessarily lathered on, and the week-old tortilla is quite rubbery in texture. Two of the judges could not eat more than one bite of this meal, and even the chef, in a rare moment of lucidity, looked up from his meal and said, “Wow this is bad,” before going back to make seconds.
Verdict: It would be illegal to serve this to death row inmates.
Something Called A ‘Protein Bomb?’
This is a tried-and-true staple of this kitchen. It’s not pretty, but it get’s the job done. Real blue-collar, lunch-pail-type stuff coming from the chef today. After returning home from a four-hour “brunch” where all calories were ingested in the form of drinks, Noam returns to his college days to resurrect this culinary classic. First prepared in a frat house kitchen in 2011, this mixture of scrambled eggs, ground turkey, and canned corn has been dubbed “The Protein Bomb.” It uses but three cheap ingredients, yet is filling enough to tame even the worst drunchies. Noam has even added his signature flourish: enough ketchup to make the Heinz company look forward to their quarterly earnings. Even in his incoherent state, the kid’s still got it.
Verdict: Out of the five-judge panel, two of them vowed never to eat ketchup again, and all of them needed a 45-minute bathroom break immediately following this dish.
Slow-Cooked Chili
Noam has pulled out all the stops for this one, folks. Three pounds of ground beef, chili beans, corn, diced tomatoes, onions and peppers, and all set to stew for a full 3-hours to really let the flavor soak in. Needless to say, all of us judges were disappointed when the chef’s roommate turned off the stove and told the chef (who had passed out on the table) to “go to bed and stop trying to burn the fucking house down.” Wow. Things are heating up in this kitchen, and it certainly isn’t the chili.
Verdict: The dish smelled amazing, but would have inevitably ended with a visit from the local fire department.
The Fluffernutter
Perhaps disheartened by his last dish’s failure to come to fruition, Chef Paoletti has opted for a much less dangerous meal this evening. After drinking on his friend’s rooftop all day, he knows he needs to carbo-load if he is going to attempt to rally and go out tonight. In what might be his most impressive feat yet, Noam actually stopped at the grocery store, grabbed sliced bread, Nutella, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff, and managed to hide his total drunkenness for the two minutes it took to make small-talk with the cashier. He is a man on a mission tonight, and nothing will get in the way of his meal. In the kitchen, the chef handled this dish with the precision of a Swiss banker. Artfully laying down even strokes of all three spreads, he closed his sandwich with just seconds to spare (before he had to leave for the bars). He took a red solo cup of milk for the road and are his Fluffernutter while ambling to the train stop — a man in a state of total bliss.
Verdict: This dish never disappoints, and it was made beautifully. All of our judges have had a massive sugar crash and are extremely cranky.
A KFC Double Down Wrapped Inside A Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme
For this final dish, we go on the road to beautiful Los Gatos, California for Thanksgiving. Visiting his hometown has gone as expected for the chef, and as he stumbles out of the bar he is brutally reminded that there is only one place open for food after 11pm: the joint Taco Bell-KFC. Unfazed, our chef confidently orders a meal that causes his Uber driver (whom he begged to take him through the drive-thru) to turn around in his seat and say “seriously?” After taking his two separate meals home, he lays them down on his kitchen table and stares at the Crunchwrap Supreme and Double Down sitting in front of him. With his lips moving imperceptibly, as though reciting some kind of ancient mathematic formula, Noam's hands begin to move. They start off slowly, almost unsure if what he is attempting is possible, but then begin to gain confidence and speed. With a few sure motions, he does what we never thought to be possible: he has wrapped his Double Down completely in his Crunchwrap Supreme to create a dish that can only be described as “2500mg of sodium in one sitting.”
Verdict: One of the judges started praying fervently and crossing himself. Two more fainted, and one handed in his resignation letter on the spot. For an abomination against man and god, the combined flavors were surprisingly complementary and really spoke to the refined palate.
That’s all from us tonight, folks. Be sure to tune in next time for our special camping episode: What Won’t Noam Try To Grill While Super High? .