BY CHEFANON
I have harbored the weight of an immense guilt for years, and it has finally become too much to bear. I’ll admit it — I’ve been disguising McDonald’s as my own cooking and serving it at my five-star restaurant for almost a decade. Now, before you decry this act of culinary terrorism, I need you to understand where this all began.
For almost a century now, Americans have looked to the golden arches to satiate their incessant hunger for carbohydrates and fat, feeding upon countless Chicken McNuggets and Big Macs smothered in cholesterol-laden sauces. Like countless adolescents growing up today, I too was caught by the iron-fisted grip of Ronald McDonald in my youth. I still remember my first Big Mac — that double-pattied, triple-bunned sandwich filled a gap in my eight-year-old soul that nothing else could. Ever since then, nothing has tickled my tastebuds — nay, my very being — in quite the same way.
My passion for the culinary arts grew in my young adulthood, but I could never shake my dedication to the Golden Arches. I kept working towards my dream as a restaurateur, but no amount of sous vide or steak tartare could shake the constant daydreams of cheap double-decker cheeseburgers from my mind.
I did my best to ignore those intrusive thoughts, I really did. But eventually, the Hamburglar’s greasy allure got the better of me. If I enjoyed McDonald’s that much, then surely everybody else did as well. Do my patrons really avoid cheap fast food because it’s bad, or just because of the connotation it carries? It started when I substituted one customer’s meal with the same food I had enjoyed myself all those years, then again, and again, until virtually every meal that came out of those kitchen doors was nothing more than deep-fried lies.
I tried to convince myself that it was all just a phase, but I’ve been secretly serving fast food for years. I’m in too deep. I know it’s only a matter of time before one of my patrons catches on and tells somebody, and then the gender-neutral toy cat will finally be out of the Happy Meal bag.
Before the inevitable happens, though, I must prompt you with a question. If nobody noticed the difference between my critically acclaimed five-star cooking and clown-themed fast food, am I really to blame? If pretentious food critics are more than happy to shove Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets down their throats, just because it was served on fine china with a fancy splash of ketchup, doesn’t that say more about them than it does about me? Foodies pretend to know exactly what goes into their meals, but let’s be real — those pretentious assholes wouldn’t know a Big Mac if it hit them in the face.
Appointed village idiot
