A Play A Day #358

Love To Eat


Cast:
Lou
Isa

Setting: Lou's kitchen.


(lights up on a full kitchen, Lou, a plump man in his forties or fifties, is cooking something on the stovetop, enter Isa, his very skinny teenage niece)

Lou: Ahh! There's the littlest angel! How is my beautiful niece this beautiful morning?

Isa: Fine, Uncle Lou.

Lou: How is it that you can be so skinny? You don't eat, perhaps?

Isa: I eat. I just have a high metabolism, I guess.

Lou: Do not lie to your Uncle Lou; I won't listen to lies. You don't eat your Mama's food; she is my little sister. I taught her all of my kitchen skills so many years ago, but she tells me you do not eat what she makes.

Isa: Well, I don't always like what she makes.

Lou: Why?

Isa: She adds weird things to normal dishes and then tries to get me to eat them by telling me that they are delicacies in other parts of the world.

Lou: Yes? And?

Isa: Some of it is really gross.

Lou: Like what?

Isa: Like the other day she made me a ham and cheese omelette, right before I took the first bite she said: "I hope I didn't add too much jacarindo."

Lou: Ahh, yes, jacarindo!

Isa: What's jacarindo?

Lou: It is better for you to not know.

Isa: That's what she said!

Lou: She is right!

Isa: I can't eat it if I don't know what it is.

Lou: It is a delicacy on the small Pacific island of Guberra.

Isa: So?

Lou: You should eat it sometime.

Isa: I can't eat that weird, foreign stuff.

Lou: Well, your Uncle Lou, he only uses fresh domestic ingredients in his cooking, nothing weird or foreign.

Isa: But, you said you taught my Mom everything she knows about cooking.

Lou: Yes, yes, so I did.

Isa: So doesn't she cook just like you?

Lou: Yes, in a way, but she doesn't attend to another rule of cooking: know your audience.

Isa: Audience?

Lou: I am cooking for you right now, so you are my audience.

Isa: Oh, I see.

Lou: Yes, so I cook only with things that I know you like.

Isa: Okay.

Lou: When my niece comes to visit, she will eat! She will eat and gain weight and be happy; because Uncle Lou knows how to make his audience happy.

Isa: Sounds good. I'm pretty hungry.

Lou: Yes, you are also pretty and hungry, too.

Isa: Thanks, Uncle Lou.

(Lou takes something from the oven)

Lou: Right now, I've just finished this flan for you.

Isa: Flan?

Lou: It's like a cake with low self-esteem. See, it is flat and in a pan; so, it is a flan.

Isa: Smells good.

(Lou cuts a piece, puts it on a plate with a fork and hands it to Isa)

Lou: It should. It is filled with those things that I know my audience likes.

Isa: (taking a bite) What's in it?

Lou: You tell me.

Isa: Strawberries?

Lou: Of course, easy, easy for you. Even when you were a little girl, I would catch you stealing strawberries from my garden.

Isa: I still steal some.

Lou: I know, but you are quicker now so I don't catch you.

Isa: (another bite) Cinnamon?

Lou: Of course, you do love cinnamon, I know.

Isa: And... (chewing some, getting a concerned look on her face) Bleehhh... what's... (grabbing at her tongue) Is that... Uncle Lou, there's hair... a lot of hair...

Lou: (big smile, he's excited) Not hair, Isa... fur!

Isa: (gagging, retching) Aggghhh, uuhhhhhgggghhh.... what did you put in this... akkkk...

Lou: You do not know?

Isa: No!

Lou: Kitties! I know this is what you love most of all!

(Isa starts vomiting on her plate)

Lou: But the kitties are fresh-blended this morning!

(more vomiting, Lou goes to the fridge and pulls out a large bowl)

Lou: (indicating bowl) Perhaps you love puppies more now?

(lights out)

(end)