titusnowl | This is, for the record, just about the only thing he actually knows how to cook offhand.

"I never noticed there was a security camera in the kitchen!" Spy peered up at the little metal box, evidently delighted from tip to toe. "I wonder if that's standard equipment, or if someone installed it because previous residents had trouble with teammates nicking their things from the refrigerator or something? Do you suppose these things actually get recorded, or at least watched, or anything like that? Just think, we've a camera in our kitchen - it's like we're Julia Child or something! We should put on a cooking show for the benefit of whomever may be privileged to watch it."

And thus was born....

COOKING WITH PONCE

This is a little meal I like to call "Rolling Upstairs From The Pub And Catching A Glimpse Of Your Alarm Clock As You Stumble Through The Door, Because You're Living In A Bedsit And Your Nightstand Is Just On The Opposite Wall, And It Turns Out That It Has Somehow Become Half Past Nine In The Morning, So You Decide That Perhaps You Ought To Make Breakfast On The Little Electric Ring That Is All You Can Lay Claim To As A Kitchen."

[The implements and ingredients are already arranged attractively on the counter. He taps each one as he goes down the list.]

What we're going to need for this delightful little menu is one egg, one slice of bread, some margarine or butter - either one is quite alright, dear hearts, butter tastes better but margarine's less dear and keeps far longer, so it's all we have at the moment, I'm amazed they can even manage to get us eggs in a timely manner - and you'll also want a plate and knife, a smallish drinking glass, a fry-pan and something you can use to flip things over whilst they are in the fry-pan.

[He turns toward his audience - either in the kitchen with him or outside in the common room - waving the implement in question in one hand.] What do you call this sort of thing around here? [Two different voices answer, one saying "spatula" and the other saying "flipper."] Don't be ridiculous, Flipper was a dolphin and those don't exist. [Back to work!]

That's it for our main course. We'll also be covering the proper beverage to accompany. Keeping in mind that the medium is the message, and thus the entire milieu is the meal, we begin by coming to terms with the realization that we've been out until half past nine in the morning and that our head is beginning to hurt. The first step in the recipe is thus to find the nearest source of alcohol, in the hair-of-the-dog line.

[There is a bottle of whiskey in the back of the counter. He pours a dollop into the drinking glass.] Bottoms-up! [Glass is drained.]

Now, it's important to both keep hydrated and prevent unwanted flavours from sneaking into the finished product, so we rinse the glass out with some fresh water from the tap, and drink that down too. Waste not, want not, you know.

[He holds the glass up and inspects it.] I do believe I've missed a spot. [More whiskey down the hatch, and then more water.]

Begin by getting all of the ingredients ready to go. For our beverage, we'll be making coffee in the only correct and proper way. This requires coarse-ground coffee beans, and you'll want two tablespoons per eight ounces of finished product. I use a rather large mug, so we'll be making twelve ounces, thus using three tablespoons. The implement you see before you is a French press, one of the few good things besides yours truly that has ever come out of that country, and it is the only tool allowed in the production of a proper brew. Get your grounds down in there, and set some water on to heat up - it's perfectly alright to use an electric kettle for that, only we haven't got one handy, so we're doing it on the stove - but don't do anything else yet, because cooking is a science, o best beloved, and you can't go getting ahead of yourself in science. Any Engineer can tell you that. Newton's Fourth Law states that a moving object cannot be ahead of itself, and one really has to wonder why he needed to make a law regarding that when it's really self-evident when considered.

So, having placed three tablespoons of coffee into the carafe portion of the press, we move on to further preparations. Now, use your glass to cut a hole out of the center of your bread, as so. If you're really famished, you can eat this little bread-circle right away. Otherwise you can feed it to a handy dog or child - [He turns to the audience again.] Cuddles, did you want any bread? [Muffled swearing.] - or you can forget it entirely, and find it a week later somehow transferred to the top of the radiator housing beneath your window and dried into an impenetrable disc, which you can then toss out of the window like a Frisbee or something and see if you break any windscreens in the street below. So, with that disposed of - we'd better sanitize this glass, now it's touched the food - [More whiskey, more water.]

Right-o, then! Some people will actually go to the effort of buttering the bread at this point, but we are going to do this like real men, my darlings. Crack your egg into the glass you were just using, toss a few chunks of butter into the fry-pan, and turn it up to high heat. While that's melting up, we'll see if the water's boiling - oh, goody gumdrops, it is. [The kettle is removed from the heat, and he gives the frying pan a quick toss to move the melting butter around.] Now, toss your bit of bread in there, and pour the egg into the middle. Press the bread down in so the egg doesn't go crawling out underneath it, because if your eggs are crawling around underneath things then you're having a flashback to whatever it is you were taking last night that made it suddenly become half past nine in the morning. Now, get your watch out and take note of the time. Pour your water in - we want 12 ounces of coffee, so we need to put in just a bit more water than that, to allow for the grounds soaking some up - stir it up a bit, and put the lid on to press. Don't touch the plunger yet, Newton's Fourth Law.

In the meantime, we need to sanitize that cup again. [This time he rinses the egg out first, and does not drink the egg water. The rest of the ritual goes as before.]

Now, back to our egg in a basket. You want it to just start going white down at the bottom, so it's good and firmed up and won't go splashing everywhere when you go to flip it. Keep an eye on it and your other eye on the watch, and when the proper time comes, get out your spatula and say a prayer. This is a special prayer for this particular situation, and the wording is: "Oh Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not make an utter arse of ourselves whilst flipping this egg, and let us turn it over without it spilling or something, in Thy mercy." You don't need to say it aloud, but it must always be uttered in your heart. It is an essential step in the making of this meal.

[The egg and toast are flipped without a problem.] Now, we want to make sure there's butter on both sides, so toss a few more chunks in there, and sort of wiggle the bread around so it soaks it all up. I prefer my eggs over-easy, which makes everything terribly convenient for me, because that takes almost precisely four minutes, and the coffee does take precisely four minutes, which is why we are watching the clock. As soon as we hit our four-minute mark, turn the heat off, leave the food there - it'll set up just a bit more while you're busy - and press the plunger down in the press slowly but firmly until it has hit the absolute bottom. Don't go pressing on it too hard, you're not going to win any contests that way and the stuff you squeeze out will be more bitter than the rest of it. Now, pour your coffee into your mug, add sugar, cream or whiskey to taste [Guess which one he opts for], and get your food out onto a plate. You can eat it with a fork, if you've a fork handy, or you can simply sort of collapse onto the floor of the bedsit and gnaw on it until you pass out. That's the beauty of this recipe, you know, it's so incredibly versatile! So that was Rolling Upstairs From The Pub At Half Past Nine In The Morning And Needing To Eat Something Before You Died, and I've been your host, Terry Danger Kennedy-Bonaparte, and you've been a lovely audience. Bon appetit!

Editor's Note: The above recipe is true and correct. However, Ponce is a trained professional with a liver of steel (to match his upper lip), and so I do not advise anyone except him, me, or 3weasel to attempt to imbibe the amount of whiskey he is described as downing in short order in the above paragraphs.