Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Corn Fancy, or Why I Am The Worst, by Allison

So wanting an intern had me remembering being an intern, one summer during college I interned at the local ABC affiliate TV station.

It was actually pretty cool in that they were understaffed so I got to do lots of stuff, including being assignment editor (Which? Is like hostessing at a restaurant, all the reporters get mad at you like the waiters do when you don't give them the story/customer they want)
and interviews and editing, but there was this one thing I had to do that made me just evil.

 Pre-Food Network etc, there was this segment during the noon show with a syndicated chef, and I was about to use his name but I googled and he is still around so I will not call him out, but every single recipe he used involved Bisquick, applesauce, pudding, tapioca, or a mix of those.

He'd tell people to write to him "at the studio" and he'd send the recipes, yes this was in Ye Olden Days where you had to write and wait for someone to write back, uphill in the snow.


So my Bad Intern Job was to reply to these people who wrote in for recipes.

Sometimes, I would send them the recipe they wanted.

This happened if they wrote a nice letter, with proper grammar, not using crayons, asked nicely, and were not lunatics.

 So, that was like 10 percent of the time.

If the letter displeased me somehow,
for example enclosing pictures of the writer's cats,
severe subject-verb agreement issues,
demanded in a cranky way saying they'd written three times and never got a recipe,
had perfume on it, or was otherwise crazy, like this one lady who wrote every day with requests for the chef to tell the anchor at our particular station about her son who was single,
I invented Corn Fancy.


Corn Fancy was a recipe I totally made up and put on the chef's letterhead, and it was the grossest thing I could think of that could passably be something this chef would actually make.

It was the following: Bisquick, canned corn, applesauce, tapioca, and salsa.

Mix and bake for 45 minutes at 350.

I would send out Corn Fancy, entertaining myself with the thoughts of people getting the recipe, thinking,"Huh? Was this what I wanted? Let me ask my cats."

And then I thought of someone actually liking it, and making it their signature dish, that they'd bring at holidays, their Corn Fancy.

This was huge fun for me, being semi-benignly wicked to a variety of absurd recipe requesters.

Of course, in retrospect, that was not a nice thing for me to do, and clearly I was a Terrible Intern.

The intern I am seeking will not wreak such havoc. Unless havoc needs to be wreaked. If so, unleash the Corn Fancy.


 Sidenote: One way in which I knew Matt was going to be able to deal with me was when we started dating I told him about Corn Fancy and he was not horrified and did not think I was evil or deranged, he thought we should test out the recipe and possibly serve it when needed. 

True love.