How to Bastardize Ratatouille. Bum-Bum Germs Stylee.

How to Cook Rattatoooeypie.

First, find an online ratatouille recipe that looks good. I found this here one. 2,000,000 reviews can't be wrong. Or 521. Bygones.

Shit, I messed up already. FIRST, be sure to watch Walt Disney's Ratatouille. So as 2 get in the mood. Find a chef's cap and a small disgusting rodent to place therein. THEN, find a good ratatouille recipe online. Like I says, I found this one.

Step one: Print it out. Step two: Tape it near your cooking area. Step three: Make sure not to follow any of it.

Then, coat a lovely glass pan with a fine fine garlic olive oil. Next, you wash all the vegetables. I said wash all the vegetables. WITH DISH SOAP.

Lather up that eggplant. Lather up those zucchinis. Yes, lather up that onion, even though you are going to take its skin off. You do not want to slice bum-bum germs straight into the sweet, firm white succulent sexy young flesh of an onion.

If you want to make sure you are on good terms with me, you will even wash the garlic. Then you peel that shit, mince that shit, and toss it in a pan of garlic olive oil. Then add in your clean, clean, fresh clean white onion. Sauté for a goodly bit. Then toss in some salt, pepper, parsley flakes, and oregano to taste. Sauté a bit more until that nonsense is translucent and delightfully rank.

Then, take your freshly scrubbed eggplant and peel. Cut, de-seed, scrape that shit out, do whatever you want to prepare your eggplant. Chop it into cubes, slices, trapezoids, I don't give a fuck. Toss with a bit more garlic olive oil.

Take your green pepper, yellow squash, and zucchini. If they have not been scrubbed to almost their very demise, throw everything away and start the fuck over: you obviously cannot follow directions. Begin again by WASHING THAT SHIT WITH SOAP. When you have reached this point again, with clean NON-  E.-coli vegetables this time, slice the green pepper, yellow squash, and zucchini into...slices. Mandolin stylee. All up in here.

If you happen to drop any stray vegetables on the floor, or God forbid the nasty nasty sink, DO NOT USE THAT PIECE REPEAT DO NOT USE THAT PIECE. This one went straight in the garbage:

DO NOT LET FILTHY VEG HAPPEN TO YOU.

Speaking of mushrooms....Now. Now comes the mushrooms. If you're like me, you'll go buy mushrooms, and then throw them promptly away, because mushrooms do not belong in food dishes. Ever. Except when you're feeling saucy. And today, I was feeling saucy. So you can either take your mushroom and do like Tenacious D and shove two of them up your ass, or throw them down the incinerator, or never buy them to begin with....or you can be bold and decide, "Mushrooms? Well why the fuck not. Even though they're groce."

But now comes the dilemma. Do you wash them, or not?

Now, if you google this issue, you'll get wildly varying opinions. Some swear you should never, ever, EVER wash fresh mushrooms, as it removes their delicious (???) flavor. Some say you should take a small firm brush and merely dust off the dirt, even if served raw.

Others say to perhaps take a cursory swipe of the shrooms with a damp cloth, and discard any gnarly stems. Other people? Other people in their right mind? Como yo? remind you that mushrooms are grown right in the motherfucking manure, yo. WASH THAT FUCKING SHIT WITH WATER. WASH IT. WASH IT.

So after you have washed your mushrooms to within an inch of their filthy lives, and possibly even swirled them about in soapy water, slice them. Do it.

Then glance at your recipe again, realize you've forgotten to sauté your eggplant first, scream "SCREW IT!" take a swig of any nearby wine, and go ahead and layer all your veggies. Extremely haphazardly. We're talking, ugly style. Throw that crap all about. No rhyme, no reason.

Stick a few chunks of eggplant here, three slices of green pepper there, and a handful of mushroom all in betwixt. Make sure it is as ugly as poss.

Then, drizzle about 400 calories of olive oil on top, add enough salt and pepper to raise your blood pressure to 160/100, and top with fairly thickly-sliced tomato. Which you surely have washed with dish soap. For to wash off all the hand germs, semen, fecal matter, dust, duck shit, salmonella, and sneeze.

Another "GOTCHA" to one of my favorite people, the Not So Special Mother Janice. :)

Once you have added those divine slices of tomato, add even more S&P. Because you only live once.

Then, top with your onion/garlic sauté mixture. ADD MORE S&P GODDAMMIT. I'm telling you.

Them top with great vast handfuls of shredded parmesan cheese.

(Make sure you have Clorox wipes directly visible in the background at all times.)

Finally, give another cursory glance at your recipe; realize you have done things completely fucking wrong, possibly due to the large amounts of Shiraz you've drunk; say a prayer to the Patron Saint of Pixar movies; and throw that motherfucker in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Result:

Tasty, toasty, melty, ugly, random, delicious, cheesy vegetable goodness.

For that Extra Wow Factor, add birthday candles.

Just kidding, don't.

I hope you enjoy your Ratatouille a la Bum-Bum Germs. Mine was spectacular.

Love,
Jo