Posts Tagged ‘recipes’

Eel Pie Island

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

I can’t seem to get away from these fucking eels!

Last week I posted my old remembrance of the grisly and botched slaughtering of an eel in my kitchen to make a pie. The recipe was named Eel Pie Island Pie. Today my oldest dearest friend, Bryan, sent me the link to this bit of video about the source of the eel pie recipe: Eel Pie Island.

Turns out the place has quite a bit of history behind it, including being where Dicken’s wrote Little Dorrit and where the Rolling Stones had their first gig. Go figure.

Bryan has also suggested I record the story and put it online as a podcast. He seems to think I’m a good oral storyteller. I’ve got some writer chums on Twitter who are very involved in doing the same sort of thing so I might just give it a go. What the hell – I could always use a good distraction to keep me from pursuing – something – like writing new stuff.

Cheers.

The Eel Story

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Those who know me have already heard this story but I keep getting encouraged to post it again so here it is.

It’s a true story and still gives me the willies just thinking about it. It involves me a recipe for pie and an eel.

You can download the whole seven pages of woe here as a PDF but here’s a brief snip from the tale:

Something to remember when slaughtering eels is to never panic and begin slashing at your own hands with a sharp knife. Not a good thing to do.

The knife blade dug into my left hand just at the first knuckle, leaving a neat V-shaped cut that flapped open and bled freely. An eighth of an inch to the right and it would have severed the tendon to my index finger.

I shook off the offending serpent and retreated to the kitchen sink. As I washed my hand, peeling eel grease out of the wound, and bandaged myself, my anger boiled up inside of me. How dare such a simple creature attack me? After all, I am a superior being. I reside relatively high on the food chain. I am a human being, dammit! That thing’s not going to get the best of ME!

Oh yes - I still bear the marks.

My friend Ben has suggested I re-stage the event for video but I am not so inclined. I am not now afraid of eels nor am I reluctant to reprise the pie recipe – it was, after all, quite delicious – I just think it would end being like Woody Allen and the lobsters in Annie Hall, so that won’t be happening.

But the words live on.

Enjoy.

Cheers.