Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 11:46:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Howard Hastings <hhasting-AT-osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: PLC: cooking with sartre (fwd)



More enlightenment.  Selections from Sartre's lost diary have been
discovered.

hh
.....................................................................

---------- Forwarded message ----------

October 3


Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook.  Though he has never
actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement.  I rushed home
immediately to begin work.  How excited I am!  I have begun my formula
for a Denver omelet.

> October 4

Still working on the omelet.  There have been stumbling blocks.  I
keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into
the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone.  I want to
create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and
instead they taste like cheese.  I look at them on the plate, but they
do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off.  It did not
help.  Malraux suggested paprika.

> October 6

I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is
bourgeois.  Today I tried making one out of cigarette, some coffee,
and  four tiny stones.  I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am
encouraged, but my journey is still long.

> October 10

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional
dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely.
Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish
Place the casserole dish in front of a cold oven.  Place a chair
facing  the oven and sit in front of it forever.  Think about how
hungry you  are.  When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its
inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle.  How can the eater
recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some
other dish?  I am becoming more and more frustated.

October 25

I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire
cookbook.  Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself,
embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well
as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the
four basic food groups.  To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds
of  foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the
kitchen,  refusing to admit anyone.  After several weeks of work, I
produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons
of beef, and a leek.  While this is a start, I am afraid I still have
much work ahead.

> November 15

Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a
live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word "cake".  I
was very pleased.  Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not
stay for dessert.  Still, I feel that this may be most profound
achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker 
Bake-Off. > December 1 > I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week
for two months, and I am now experiencing light tides.  It is stupid
to be so fat.  My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as
they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less.  From
now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.


>From Free Agent , (a Portland Oregon alternative newspaper).





     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---