Page 76
The kitchen smelled of stale beer and cockroaches, though our hero was numb to this odor and he ignored it. However, ixcuincle could not ignore his overpowering hunger. Ironically, his hunger was consuming him. "I must eat now" he said. He first wanted to order Americanized Chinese takeout, but had already eaten from his favorite restaurant earlier that day. He glanced around the room, puzzled. His eyes lit up when he saw a strategically placed camera and tripod. He knew what he must do. He knew that others had made significant income on social media from live-streaming daily activities...why not live-stream cooking a delicious meal? He then realized that risotto would serve as the perfect dish. It was labor-intensive and requires both quality ingredients and attentiveness to achieve proper texture. It...was perfect, and would be the first rung on the ladder to social media superstardom. After setting up his camera, he was ready to embark on an incredible journey.
ixcuincle took a good look at his cookware and wondered aloud if he should wash the pots and pans. After all, he understood that a proper patina is an asset when cooking, and knew that cleaning his pots
would eat away at the patina he had worked so hard to cultivate. "It is fine" he said. His knives, on the other hand, were not sufficiently sharp for the task at hand. Due to several days of reddit research, he was very well-versed in proper knife-sharpening technique. He then proceeded to play whack-a-mole on the sharpening steel with his finest knives, which had been purchased second-hand from an unknown discount manufacturer. After a few seconds, the knife transformation was complete. With a quick smirk at the camera, our hero gathered the necessary ingredients from a creaky refrigerator and stale pantry. He stopped. "Something's missing..." he said. Instantly, a stroke of genius came over him...he had forgotten his cooking apron! With a smile, he retrieved his finest Washington Capitals cooking apron, complete with a vomit stain and the anti-Pittsburgh Penguins graffiti he had written in his own blood after a Game 7 meltdown. After putting on the apron, our hero began chopping the ingredients with his surgical steels. However, there was a problem...he did not have arborio rice, a requirement for achieving an authentic risotto. He then recalled a conversation he had with his neighbor's dog and remarked aloud "No problem, I will just use this white rice since it is the same color." With a smile, he continued along.
"This is too much work" said ixcuincle after 5 minutes of effort. He scoured his kitchen, desperate for
a solution to his dilemma. After a few seconds, our hero knew what he had to do. After a quick glance at the camera, he pulled out his crock pot from the depths of his rarely-used upper cabinet and moved all ingredients to the vessel. After pushing a few buttons, our hero ate a few snacks to ease his overwhelming hunger. ixcuincle then scratched himself inappropriately, smiled to the camera and retired to his computer for a few hours to engage in some rather unsavory activities, pausing only to scream at his Mexican neighbors that were making a truly dreadful noise.
Upon returning, ixcuincle shut off the crock pot and smelled his creation. He could no longer bear to be
without it. Upon tasting the dish, he uttered the words that would echo throughout history forever:
"It's really creamy...Damn."
It was time for our hero to return to HFBoards. Turn to page 228 to desperately seek Zaide's approval about Asian pop music, or turn to page 99 to use his software knowledge gleaned from intense internet research to poke fun at OmniCube's career.
