The Time-Travellers Cooking Chaos by Joshua Ford

I’ve always loved to cook. I enjoy the creativity and the experimentation of it all. The beauty of mixing cultures and countries and colours all in one bowl. So when my sister asked me to do a collection of hors d’oeuvres for her party, I said “yes, definitely”.

Attempt 1

Asparagus wraps – classy, sophisticated. Made the pastry, wrapped the asparagus and sprinkled some feta. Lovely. I set the timer.

Burnt the pastry into ash, missed the timer because I was having a shit. I was finished but ended up in a rabbit hole of dancing cats on TikTok. But it’s fine. God hath bestowed upon me a gift of the unburning. I hopped in my cupboard, closed my eyes, and time travelled back 10 minutes. Fixed.

Attempt 2

Prosciutto shrimp – simple, yet effective. Made sure I didn’t burn these. They looked ready, smelled ready. Ate a couple, got food poisoning and missed the engagement party. Maybe shrimp is too risky?  Avoid shrimp in the future/past.

Attempt 3

Why do they make jars so unopenable? Smashed the glass, cut myself. Tried again – somehow it was tighter on the second attempt (how?). Went back and bought a packet instead to save time.

Attempt 4

Arrggghhhh!! This is becomingly increasingly frustrating.

Attempt 5

I am a culinary god!

Everything went perfectly … except I went on the wrong day and by the time I travelled to the right day, everything had gone cold.

Attempt 6

Right day. Great food. But my evil brother’s “new thing” is vegan, and I left the cheese twists at home and Janet is allergic to nuts and Damien thought the meatballs were bland. You’re bland.

I’m done. I hate cooking. Make your own hors d’oeuvres next time, I’m getting drunk.

Joshua Ford is a 3rd Physics Phd student in Bristol, UK. When he isn’t exploring planets, he’s climbing rocks and writing stories; some funny, some sad, some about time-travellers and some about robots. His favourite writers are Dylan Thomas, Isaac Asimov and Robert Harris.

Photo by ömer sığın at Pixabay