Dad's Wedding Diary 3

Last week my wife brought home a catering menu for my daughter's wedding reception.  Our goal was to parse the respective fare and decide which recipes we would be offering.  I suggested making tomato soup and cheese sandwiches, but my idea did not hit on receptive ears.

"There's some delicious stuff here," my wife said.  She also suggested that sitting next to each other on the couch while we made our selections was going to be some kind of romantic experience.  But I had long ago decided that love and wedding menus don't mix.  And besides, both kids were in the house listening in from their respective bedrooms, including the future bride.

"Ok," I said, "what are we looking at here?  They have anything out of a can?"

It's amazing how uptown these catering businesses have become.  I thought I was buying for the maharajah of Singapore.  The menu selections were nearly indecipherable and read something like:

Wild Olive Twists on Rye

a salty appetizer comprised of those big honkin' turkish olives on a fresh baked rye bread that costs about $200 a pound and smeared with a fresh humus paste that will have all the neighbors askin' 'what the hell is that stuff?'

Maroon Bacon Chestnuts

a classic appetizer that looks like crap but tastes pretty good, especially after we give this one a fancy name and empty a regular can of water chestnuts into a bowl, smear those suckers with olive oil and then wrap them in bacon

Some More Crap

these appetizers are composed of all the leftovers from the Harry-Legg wedding reception this past Saturday, but your guests won't know the difference

Chicken Hop-a-Long

we take the freshest chickens we can find, wring their necks just minutes before your wedding, and serve the whole bird on top of a wild rice pilaf and spicy mustard sauce  

Vegetable Medly of the Mingh Dynasty

you won't recognize a single vegetable in this dish but some of them are edible, especially the ones that look like dissected monkey toes but are actually quite fresh if you pick 'em while they're green and tender

Hearts of Tadpole Livers in Bernaise Sauce

this fresh amphibian fare comes straight out of hibernation to your plate and we boil 'em, cream 'em, and call it dinner+

Mavis's Muffins

call 'em anything you like but these flaky whole-wheat corn muffins are gonna blow your mind, especially since the corn came straight out of a Hoosier field laced with traces of Methamphetamin

Skyline Lemon-Lime Pie

in a restaurant you'd pay upwards of $59.75 for a slice of this, but we're practically giving it away since we took you to the cleaners on those Tadpole Livers

* add 85% gratituity if you plan to have more than 10 guests
+ does not actually include sauce, if you want that, we charge an extra $500 since we have to fly the sauce in from some small country in South America where children are exploited for labor purposes and women are generally regarded as property, unlike in America, where brides like your daughter are pampered and given carte-blanche permission to create weddings of the size and scope that we cater

NOTE:  If you are the father of the bride and are sitting on the couch with your wife reading over this menu selection, we heartily apologize and know that you would rather be rolling in the sheets instead of discussing tadpole livers, but hey, whataya gonna do?